Ridding Russia of loose nukes

The most important task confronting President Bush upon taking office was to reverse eight years of Clinton-Gore unilateral disarmament. He has already reversed Clinton on the Antiballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) and on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Now the media elite are all atwitter, because they fear that Bush is about to undo another Clinton-Gore unilateral disarmament “success.”

The number one threat to our national security when Clinton-Gore took office was Russian loose nukes. If anything, the loose-nuke threat confronting Bush-Cheney is even worse.

Here is what Sam Nunn – author of the 1992 “Nunn-Lugar” legislation to reduce the Russian loose-nuke threat – had to say to the media elite about that threat, earlier this year.

As we enter the second decade of the post-Cold War world, let me repeat a statement often made but too often not heard. The most significant, clear and present danger to the national security of the United States is the threat posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Nothing else comes close. The public perception of the threat is low. The reality of the threat is high.

How did President Clinton address the number one threat? Well, he set about disarming us. You see, to Clinton-Gore and the globalist disarmament crowd, the U.S. is the chief obstacle to lasting peace on this planet. So that the whole world could verify that we really were disarming, he subjected our “excess” nuke materials and nuke infrastructure to the full safeguards and physical security regime of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which is administered – “transparently” – by the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Clinton did that to set an example, which all other nations – including Russia – were then expected to follow.

Clinton-Gore did get the Russians to, more or less, follow. At the 40th General Conference of the IAEA in 1997, Director General Hans Blix announced the U.S.-IAEA-Russia Trilateral Agreement. The avowed purpose was to “fulfill” previous commitments made by Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin. The Trilateral Agreement was hailed as an important step towards the U.S. and Russia meeting the nuke “disarmament obligations of Articles I and VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)”.

The Trilateral agreement was also to “complement” the proposed START III agreement, which would include “measures relating to the transparency of strategic nuclear warhead inventories and the destruction of strategic nuclear warheads”.

Under the Trilateral Agreement, the U.S. and Russia each committed to “transparently” and permanently dispose of 34 tons of weapons-useable plutonium under the watchful eyes of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Russians intend to make mixed-oxide (MOX) reactor fuel out of their entire 34 tons and under the agreement we are committed to assist them financially and technically.

Clinton-Gore, on the other hand, intended to mix all our weakly-radioactive weapons-grade plutonium with highly-radioactive waste, calcify it and bury it at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Contrary to what the media elite are now claiming, the Clinton-Gore administration was adamantly opposed to the Russian plan to make MOX fuel. So, in an effort to get the Russians to calcify and bury all their plutonium, Clinton-Gore agreed to make MOX out of some small fraction of our 34 tons of weapons grade plutonium, if the Russians would – in turn – consider calcifying and burying some of theirs.

Clinton-Gore even agreed to hire COGEMA to build a small MOX fuel fabrication plant – similar to the ones they operate in Europe – at the Department Of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

President Clinton made all these multi-billion dollar nuke-disarmament commitments but never asked Congress for the necessary funds to keep those commitments. The Clinton-Gore plan for getting funding for the Trilateral Agreement was that a certain “President” Gore would put the arm on the G-8 at the meeting of industrialized nations scheduled for June of 2001.

But, as you know, Gore didn’t attend that G-8 meeting. Bush did.

Now, reportedly, the Bush-Cheney DOE has redone the Clinton-Gore calculations, and now estimates it will cost $6.6 billion for us to carry out the disposition of our plutonium. Furthermore, there are reports that even the Clinton-Gore DOE had concluded that – at least from a nuke proliferation prevention perspective, and perhaps even cost – we ought to consider converting all our plutonium to MOX fuel for civilian nuclear reactors, rather than burying it at Yucca Mountain, as Clinton-Gore planned.

The Bush-Cheney DOE also reportedly calculated that it would cost Russia only about $1.8 billion to make MOX-fuel of all their 34 tons of plutonium. The Russians already have MOX-fuel plants that can be modified and expanded. Of course, that is money Russia does not have. But remember that the U.S. is committed – under the Trilateral Agreement – to providing them technical and financial support .

Returning to the sermon of Sam Nunn to the media elite this March:

More than 1,000 tons of highly enriched uranium, and at least 150 tons of weapons-grade plutonium exist in the Russian weapons complex – enough to build at least 60,000 nuclear weapons. Many storage sites are poorly secured. Thousands of weapons scientists are still without a steady paycheck, and terrorist groups and rogue states are trying to exploit the situation.

As a Department Of Energy task force – chaired by former Senator Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler – reported in January, this represents America’s greatest unmet threat. No investment pays a higher dollar-for-dollar dividend in national security than investment in threat reduction. None.

The media elite are concerned that President Bush may delay – primarily because of the high cost – the disposition of our weapons-grade plutonium. But, Clinton-Gore and the disarmament crowd to the contrary, our nukes are not the threat. Russian loose nukes are. Delaying the disposition of our excess plutonium will do no harm. But let’s hope that President Bush intends to fully fund our commitments to help Russia get rid of its loose nukes. No investment will ever pay a higher dollar-for-dollar dividend.