AFF/THREAT REDUCTION: SOLVENCY

NUCLEAR THREAT REDUCTION PROGRAMS WITH RUSSIA REDUCE THE RISK OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS USE

THE BEST WAY TO REDUCE THE NUCLEAR THREAT IS TO FUND THE PROGRAMS TO DEMOBILIZE RUSSIAN NUCLEAR FORCES

Michael McFaul, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an assistant professor at Stanford University. April 11, 2001, The New York Times SECTION: Section A; Page 23;  HEADLINE: A Step Backward on Nuclear Cooperation //VT2002acsln

A decade later, cooperative threat reduction is widely accepted. A bipartisan review commission headed by former Senator Howard Baker fully endorses the idea, and Democrats and Republicans vote year after year to finance these programs. And President Vladimir Putin and the Russian army continue to participate willingly in them. Indeed, Mr. Putin's recent firing of the conservative head of the Ministry of Atomic Energy suggests that he might be prepared to go even further to restructure the Russian nuclear complex.

Promoting nonproliferation programs in Russia, of course, directly benefits American national security. The fewer delivery systems of nuclear weapons there are in Russia, the better; the more securely and safely stored are those nuclear materials, the better. If the Bush administration is prepared to spend tens of billions of dollars on missile defense systems to protect Americans against potential threats in the future, it cannot justify cutting the already modest budget for nonproliferation programs that help diminish a real threat in existence today.

NUNN-LUGAR THREAT REDUCTION PROGRAM HAS AN OUTSTANDING RECORD OF SUCCESS

PAUL MANN February 26, 2001 Aviation Week & Space Technology SECTION: WORLD NEWS & ANALYSIS; Vol. 154, No. 9; Pg. 28 HEADLINE: WMD Cleanup Funds Sought //VT2002acsln

Since its inception in the 1990s, the Nunn-Lugar program has funded destruction of thousands of ex-Soviet strategic weapons. The numbers of those destroyed to date comprise:

-- 407 ballistic missiles and 366 ballistic missile launchers;

-- 256 submarine missile launchers and 151 submarine-launched ballistic missiles;

-- 222 long-range nuclear air-launched cruise missiles;

-- 17 strategic missile submarines; and

-- 69 bombers.

THREAT REDUCTION PROGRAMS WITH RUSSIA HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL

Don Melvin March 30, 2001 The Atlanta Journal and Constitution SECTION: News; Pg. 1B HEADLINE: Nuclear arms risk still high, Nunn says;

He urges U.S. to help Russia shield arsenal //VT2002acsln

The program Nunn wants to save is officially known as Cooperative Threat Reduction. Initially proposed by Nunn, a Georgia Democrat, and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, it is more commonly known as the Nunn-Lugar program.

Under the program, the U.S. government works with Russian officials --- whose cash-strapped government has neither the wherewithal nor the political will to accomplish the task on its own --- to make the former Soviet arsenal safer.

In the past 10 years, Nunn said, the United States has worked with Russia to persuade Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus to give up the nuclear weapons they inherited from the Soviet Union.

This eliminated more nuclear weapons than those contained in the nuclear arsenals of China, France and the United Kingdom combined, he said. The cooperative program has destroyed hundreds of missiles, more than 80 bombers and 18 nuclear submarines and deactivated thousands of warheads.

The United States also has helped the Russians secure their nuclear weapons and materials to prevent thefts and accidents, helped them convert nuclear weapons facilities to civilian purposes and helped nuclear scientists find new jobs.

WE CAN ACCOMPLISH THIS RUSSIAN NUCLEAR MATERIAL SECURITY GOAL IN 8-10 YEARS

2. The time-frame envisioned for this plan is 8-10 years, with Russia positioned to take over any remaining work after that period.

WE SHOULD INCREASE FUNDING OF THREAT REDUCTION PROGRAMS WITH RUSSIA

St. Louis Post-Dispatch March 30, 2001, SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A5 HEADLINE: BUSH IS REVIEWING PROGRAMS TO HELP RUSSIA DISARM; REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS QUESTION WISDOM OF MOVE //VT2002acsln

The United States spends $ 760 million a year on the programs. They are designed to help Russia secure its vast cache of nuclear weapons and material and to ensure that Russia's underpaid nuclear scientists are not lured to work for other nations or terrorists.

A task force led by former Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker Jr., R-Tenn., and Lloyd Cutler, a former White House counsel, recommended increasing spending on the programs to $ 30 billion over eight to 10 years.

But government and private sources told The Associated Press that Bush's fiscal year 2002 budget proposes cutting more than $ 72 million from an Energy Department program that helps secure and find legitimate uses for uranium and plutonium taken from nuclear weapons.

WE NEED AN 8-10 YEAR PLAN TO NEUTRALIZE LOOSE RUSSIAN WMD COMPONENTS

We think that the new President, and the leaders of the 107th Congress…face the urgent national security challenge, which require us to devise an enhanced response proportionate to this threat. We think the best way to go about that is to formulate an eight- to ten-year strategic plan, assessing the threat, including which of the various programs that we now have are the most important, to increase the funding very significantly and to try to work out a method of substantially eliminating this threat to non- proliferation.

WE NEED AN 8-10 YEAR PLAN TO ASSIST RUSSIA IN NEUTRALIZING ITS NUCLEAR WEAPONS MATERIAL

Howard Baker, a former Republican senator from Tennessee, Lloyd Cutler served as counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton, January 11, 2001, The Washington Post SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. A27 HEADLINE: An Unacceptable Risk //VT2002acsln

The president and Congress should promptly formulate a strategic eight- to 10-year plan to secure and neutralize all nuclear weapons-usable material located in Russia, and to prevent the outflow of scientific expertise and equipment that other states or terrorist groups could use for nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction. To achieve this goal would be one of the greatest contributions the United States and Russia can make to the security and safety of their own citizens and the rest of the world.