[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 60 (Thursday, April 23, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4673-S4674]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LUGAR:
  S. 873. A bill to expand and improve Cooperative Threat Reduction 
Programs, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Armed Services.
  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the Nunn-Lugar 
Cooperative Threat Reduction Improvement Act of 2009.
  The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction remains the number 
one national security threat facing the United States and the 
international community. Our success in responding to this threat 
depends on cooperation with other nations and on maintaining a basic 
consensus on non-proliferation principles. The Nunn-Lugar Program has 
become the primary tool through which the U.S. works to safely destroy 
nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare capacity. Through Nunn-Lugar, 
the U.S. has eliminated more nuclear weapons than the combined arsenals 
of the United Kingdom, France, and China. When the Soviet Union 
dissolved Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus emerged as the third, fourth 
and eighth largest nuclear weapons powers in the world. Today they are 
nuclear weapons free.
  I am delighted that President Obama made the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative 
Threat Reduction Program such a high profile issue during his campaign. 
In 2005, then-Senator Obama and I traveled to Russia to see the Nunn-
Lugar Program in action. We visited the Russian nuclear warhead storage 
facility at Saratov and the mobile missile dismantlement facility near 
Perm. This experience gives him a unique vantage point to take 
important steps to revitalize and expand the program.
  The Nunn-Lugar Program has accumulated an impressive list of 
accomplishments. To date it has deactivated 7,504 strategic nuclear 
warheads, 742 intercontinental ballistic missiles, ICBMs, destroyed, 
496 ICBM silos eliminated, 143 ICBM mobile launchers destroyed, 633 
submarine launched ballistic missiles, SLBMs, eliminated, 476 SLBM 
launchers eliminated, 31 nuclear submarines capable of launching 
ballistic missiles destroyed, 155 bomber eliminated, 906 nuclear air-
to-surface missiles, ASMs, destroyed, 194 nuclear test tunnels 
eliminated, 422 nuclear weapons transport train shipments secured, 
upgraded security at 24 nuclear weapons storage sites, and built and 
equipped 16 biological monitoring stations.
  While originally focused on the states of the former Soviet Union,

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Nunn-Lugar has also produced results outside of Russia. The program 
eliminated a formerly secret chemical weapons stockpile in Albania. 
Other governments, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Congo, the 
Philippines, and Indonesia are now inquiring about Nunn-Lugar 
assistance with dangerous weapons and materials.
  Mr. President, last month the National Academy of Sciences, NAS, 
released a report on the future of the Nunn-Lugar Program. It provided 
a critically important set of recommendations that should guide the 
Obama Administration's efforts to expand the Nunn-Lugar Program around 
the world.
  The report was required by the 2008 National Defense Authorization 
Act to recommend ways to strengthen and expand the Defense Department's 
Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program. The report argues 
persuasively that the Nunn-Lugar Program should be expanded 
geographically, updated in form and function and supported as an active 
tool of foreign policy. Over the last 16 years Nunn-Lugar has been 
focused heavily on the destruction and dismantlement of massive Soviet 
weapons systems and the facilities that developed them. In the future, 
the program will be asked to address much more complex and diverse 
security threats. The changing security environment means that the 
magnitude of projects focused on former Soviet weapons threats are 
likely to be the exception and not the norm. As a result, the NAS 
report argues that the program must be less cumbersome and bureaucratic 
so it can be more agile, flexible, and responsive to ensure timely 
contributions across a larger number of countries. It concludes by 
saying ``that expanding the nation's [Nunn-Lugar] cooperative threat 
reduction programs beyond the former Soviet Union, as proposed by 
Congress, would enhance U.S. national security and global stability.'' 
The report argues that Nunn-Lugar ``should be expanded geographically, 
updated in form and function . . . and supported as an active tool of 
foreign policy by engaged leadership from the White House and the 
relevant cabinet secretaries.''
  Specifically, the NAS Report recommends that the Pentagon take the 
following steps: Remove any remaining geographic limitations on the 
program and streamline contracting procedures. Request from Congress 
limited ``notwithstanding authority'' to give Nunn-Lugar the 
flexibility it needs for future engagements in unexpected locations. 
Request that Congress exempt the Nunn-Lugar Program from the 
Miscellaneous Receipts Act to enable the program to accept funds from 
foreign countries and to co-mingle those with program funds to 
accomplish nonproliferation and disarmament goals. Review the legal and 
policy underpinnings of the Nunn-Lugar Program because many are 
cumbersome, dated, limiting, and often diminish value and hinder 
success. In addition to supporting traditional arms control and 
nonproliferation goals, Nunn-Lugar should be used to advance other 
multilateral instruments such as the Proliferation Security Initiative 
and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540. While the Nunn-
Lugar Program grew through the 1990s there was little corresponding 
growth in the size of the staff that guided policy--the office must be 
expanded. Engage broader military components, including the Unified 
Combatant Commands, to ensure full coordination and effective 
implementation of Nunn-Lugar.
  The majority of these items do not require legislation but rather 
simple Executive Branch management actions and improvements. As a 
result, I have written to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, 
Michele Flournoy, and the new WMD Coordinator at the White House, Gary 
Samore, urging them to adopt these important recommendations. But the 
granting of limited notwithstanding authority for the Nunn-Lugar 
Program and its exemption from the Miscellaneous Receipts Act does 
require Congressional authorization. The bill I am introducing today is 
focused on accomplishing this task.
  One of the most striking points made by the report's authors was that 
the Nunn-Lugar Program has suffered from a lack of leadership. It 
states that ``since 1995, the level of leadership in DoD has been 
downgraded from a high priority program managed by a Deputy Assistant 
Secretary of Defense for Cooperative Threat Reduction, and Special 
Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, to a CTR Policy Office under a 
Director for the CTR Program.'' An even more stark contrast is the time 
and diplomacy that former Secretaries Perry and Cohen committed to 
visiting project sites and engaging foreign capitals when compared to 
their successors. I am confident this is a trend that can be reversed 
quickly by the Obama administration with proper leadership. Under 
Secretary Flournoy, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Secretary 
Gates should make visiting Nunn-Lugar sites a high priority and offer 
their personal diplomacy to assisting the program in meetings its 
goals.
  The Nunn-Lugar Program has made critically important contributions to 
US national security through the elimination of strategic weapons 
systems and platforms arrayed against us. Even as the threat changes, I 
am confident that it will continue to serve US interests with the right 
leadership and direction. I commend the members of the NAS committee 
for an insightful and invigorating set of recommendations. I ask my 
colleagues here in the Senate to support this legislation and I am 
hopeful that the Obama administration will use the report's 
recommendations as a resource as they move to expand the program.
  In sum, we must take every measure possible in addressing threats 
posed by weapons of mass destruction. We must eliminate those 
conditions that restrict us or delay our ability to act. The US has the 
technical expertise and the diplomatic standing to dramatically benefit 
international security. American leaders must ensure that we have the 
political will and the resources to implement programs devoted to these 
ends.
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