[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 164 (Thursday, November 18, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14830-S14831]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               BRETT WAGNER ON RUSSIAN NUCLEAR MATERIALS

 Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is important that we remember 
how vital our nuclear nonproliferation programs with Russia are to our 
national security. That's why I was pleased, in recent weeks, to see 
two articles by Brett Wagner in the San Francisco chronicle and in the 
Wall Street Journal, which I would like to submit for the Record.
  Mr. Wagner is the president of the California Center for Strategic 
Studies, and his articles bring much needed attention to an essential 
aspect of our nuclear nonproliferation policy--to ensure that Russian 
weapons-grade, highly-enriched uranium does not fall into the wrong 
hands. We need to live up to our agreement with Russia and strengthen 
our nuclear, chemical and biological nonproliferation program with that 
nation. Our future could well depend on it.
  I believe that Mr. Wagner's articles will be of interest to all of us 
in Congress who care about these issues, and I ask that they be printed 
in the Record.
  The articles follow.

           [From the San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 22, 1999]

          U.S. Must Move Quickly to Buy Russia's Excess Nukes

                           (by Brett Wagner)

       Without a doubt, what's been most frustrating about being a 
     national security specialist in the 1990s has been urging 
     that the United States buy the hundreds of tons of 
     undersecured excess weapon-grade uranium scattered across 
     Russia--only to repeatedly hear in response that this could 
     never happen in the real world because of Washington's never-
     ending struggle to balance the federal budget.
       My, how things change.
       Today, Washington is awash in an unprecedented trillion-
     dollar budget surplus--a surplus expected to surpass $100 
     billion in the next fiscal year alone.
       Politicians from both major parties are busy, of course, 
     debating what to do with all the extra money. Unfortunately, 
     neither party has even mentioned Russia's offer to sell its 
     enormous stockpiles of excess weapon-grade uranium to the 
     United States as quickly as possible in exchange for badly 
     needed hard currency.
       Congressional and presidential priorities aside, it's hard 
     to imagine a better time to reconsider this issue.
       By now, almost everyone who reads the newspaper or watches 
     the evening news knows that Russia has yet to develop any 
     reliable means of securing its enormous stockpiles of weapon-
     grade uranium and plutonium. It doesn't even have an 
     accounting system capable of keeping track of them.
       And as the media often remind us, these materials have 
     already begun leaking into the West--troubling news, to say 
     the least, considering that:
       The blueprints and non-nuclear components necessary to 
     build crude but highly effective nuclear weapons are already 
     widely available;
       It only takes 20 or 30 pounds of highly enriched uranium to 
     arm a device capable of leveling a city the size of downtown 
     Washington;
       Rogue states and terrorist groups openly hostile to the 
     United States have already attempted several times to 
     purchase nuclear warheads or material from Russian nuclear 
     workers;
       There is no reliable way of keeping a nuclear weapon or 
     contraband from being smuggled into U.S. territory if it ever 
     does fall into the wrong hands.
       What most people don't seem to remember, however, is that 
     for several years now Russia has been trying to sell these 
     same undersecured stockpiles of highly enriched uranium to 
     the United States for use as nuclear fuel in commercial power 
     plants and, what's more, that an agreement designed to help 
     further this goal was signed by President Clinton and Russian 
     leader Doris Yeltsin in February 1993.
       Unfortunately, that agreement is a full year behind 
     schedule, with shipments from 1993 through 1999 representing 
     only 80 tons of highly enriched uranium--30 tons short of the 
     minimum goal by the end of its seventh year in force. 
     Moreover, even if the agreement were moving ahead at full 
     speed, it would still cover only a fraction of Russia's 
     excess weapon-grade uranium (500 of 1,200 tons), and none of 
     its plutonium. A frustrated Russia can't understand why 
     America wants to move so slowly.
       Meanwhile, terrorism is spiraling out of control in and 
     around Moscow, war is breaking out again in the Caucus and 
     the nuclear materials from thousands of dismantled Russian 
     warheads continue to pile up in poorly protected makeshift 
     warehouses scattered across several time zones, many of them 
     far from the central government's watchful eye.
       All of which begs the question: How long can things go on 
     this way, before we run out of luck? Or, in other words, how 
     long can Russia's hundreds of tons of missile materials be 
     stored so haphazardly before small but significant amounts 
     begin winding up in the hands of terrorists or rogue states?
       The time has come for Washington to finally put its money 
     where its mouth is and use part of the enormous budget 
     surplus to purchase as much of Russia's fissile materials--
     both uranium and plutonium--as Moscow is willing to sell, and 
     as quickly as Moscow is wiling to sell them.
       The case for taking such a bold step should be easy to make 
     with the American people.
       First, the sticker price would be remarkably low--less than 
     $20 billion. And since the U.S. government would presumably 
     one day sell most or all of the uranium and plutonium for use 
     as nuclear fuel, the expense would not have to be counted as 
     an expense--an argument sure to resonate well with fiscal 
     conservatives eager to keep pace with Gramm-Rudman.
       Second, one could compare the price tag with the hundreds 
     of billions of dollars America spent to defend itself and its 
     allies against nuclear weapons during the Cold War; the 
     trillion dollars of human life that would result if a small 
     nuclear device were ever successfully detonated in a place 
     such as downtown Washington; and the billions of dollars that 
     rogue states and terrorist groups have already offered 
     Russian nuclear workers for extremely small amounts of the 
     same nuclear material.
       And there is the tremendous sense of relief in purchasing 
     the very stuff that for so long threatened America's very 
     survival, and which now threatens the whole world.
       With the 2000 election cycle beginning to pick up steam, 
     and with the possibility of a viable third-party presidential 
     candidate growing by the day, one would think that the two 
     major parties would be scrambling to take the lead on this 
     most serious of national Security issues.

[[Page S14831]]

     
                                  ____
             [From the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 9, 1999]

                             Nukes for Sale

                           (By Brett Wagner)

       Strangely absent from the debate over how to spend 
     Washington's projected $1 trillion surplus has been any 
     discussion of Russia's longstanding offer to sell its 
     stockpiles of excess weapon-grade uranium. The time has come 
     to take Russia up on this offer.
       Russia has never developed a reliable system for protecting 
     the enormous stockpiles of weapon-grade uranium and plutonium 
     it inherited from the Soviet Union. These stockpiles are 
     often stored in makeshift warehouses, some protected only by 
     $5 combination locks and soldiers who occasionally desert 
     their posts in search of food. Small caches of these nuclear 
     materials have already begun leaking out of Russia. It would 
     only take 20 or 30 pounds of highly enriched uranium to arm a 
     device capable of leveling a city the size of lower 
     Manhattan.
       In February 1993 Presidents Clinton and Boris Yeltsin 
     signed an agreement for Russia to sell the U.S. highly 
     enriched uranium extracted from its dismantled nuclear 
     warheads in exchange for hard currency. Russia is currently 
     dismantling thousands of warheads. Unfortunately, this 
     unprecedented opportunity to advance U.S. and international 
     security has fallen behind schedule at nearly every turn, 
     primarily because Washington is constantly distracted by less 
     important issues. So far Russia has shipped only 50.5 tons of 
     highly enriched uranium--almost 30 tons short of the 
     agreement's stated goal by this point.
       One major holdup has been the U.S. enrichment Corp., a 
     recently privatized company selected by the U.S. government 
     to implement the American side of the accord. It has resisted 
     accepting delivery of Russia's enriched uranium because, 
     among other reasons, it claims that the materials are not 
     pure enough for U.S. nuclear plants. But the corporation has 
     a fundamental conflict of interest. Since it also produces 
     enriched uranium, it wants to limit Russian competition in 
     the international market.
       The question is: How long do we have before we run out of 
     luck? How long before some of Russia's uranium winds up in 
     the hands of terrorists like Osama bin Laden or regimes like 
     Saddam Hussein's?
       Washington should switch the power of executive agent from 
     the U.S. Enrichment Corp. to the Department of Energy. Given 
     that most of the delays in implementing the agreement have 
     stemmed from America's insistence that the highly enriched 
     uranium be blended down into nuclear fuel in Russia, 
     Washington should reverse this policy and accept Moscow's 
     offer to ship its undiluted uranium directly to the U.S.
       As soon as the agreement gets back on track, Washington 
     should ask Moscow to expand it to include all of Russia's 
     excess weapon-grade uranium, not to mention its excess 
     plutonium. It makes no sense to purchase one stockpile of 
     unsecured fissile material while leaving others in jeopardy.
       The pricetag for such a deal would be remarkably low. The 
     cost of purchasing 500 tons of Russia's highly enriched 
     uranium, the quantity covered in the agreement, is 
     approximately $8 billion. Beyond what the agreement covers, 
     Moscow has some 700 tons of additional weapons-grade uranium 
     it has deemed ``excess.'' That would increase the price to 
     around $19 billion. And for an additional $1 billion or $2 
     billion. Moscow would probably throw in its excess weapon-
     grade plutonium, which it has also been trying to sell for 
     use as nuclear fuel.
       With Russian parliamentary elections scheduled for later 
     this year and a presidential election next June--which may 
     well bring in a government less friendly to the West than Mr. 
     Yeltsin's--the time to act is now rather than later.

                          ____________________