Warning Of A Nuclear 9/11

Thursday, April 27, 2006

A CNP Panel Discussion With Sam Nunn, Ashton Carter, Leonard Spector, Juliette Kayyem, and Steven Brill

Summary

The possibility of a nuclear terror attack poses a real and present threat to the United States, and not enough is being done to prevent it. That was the stark conclusion drawn at a June 27th panel chaired by CNP President Tim Roemer, convened to discuss the status of progress on recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, of which Roemer was a member. Former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, who currently serves as co-chairman and CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, outlined the steps needed to secure nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material worldwide and to restrict the spread of bomb-making capacity. Referencing the 9/11 Commission report, Roemer pointed to evidence of terrorists’ intention to attempt a nuclear strike, and said, “Congress and the Administration have not given this the ‘maximum effort’ necessary. Action is needed, and it’s needed now.”

[image]

Transcript

Tim Roemer: I'm very pleased to be joined by former Senator Sam Nunn, who I will introduce shortly as one of the champions and leaders with respect to our efforts in Congress on this very critically important problem. I also want to welcome the 9/11 family members here today. A jagged hole was ripped in the heart of America on 9/11. We lost 3,000 family members. I can't imagine how big this room would need to be here today if it had been a nuclear or a biological or chemical attack. There's not a convention center in America that could probably hold the number of people that we would need for that kind of catastrophic event.

And yet we know, we're certain, from the intelligence that we have, from the 9/11 Commission report, on page 116, that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida desperately want to get these types of weapons. We know, for instance, that Osama bin Laden has escalated his attacks on America. Back in 1993, he used a van and attacked the Trade Centers. In 2001, he used planes as missiles and killed 3,000 people. And we know that Osama bin Laden wants to get nuclear capabilities. We know this man, we know his works. We know he's met with two Pakistani nuclear scientists. We know he's trying to secure nuclear weapons and has been since 1993. We know that he has instructed Al Qaida that it is a religious duty and obligation to get these weapons. We have been warned that a nuclear 9/11 is a terrorist objective. Our political leaders also know this. Let me read a couple of quotes from some of the highest people in our government that have recognized this threat and this problem.

In the 2004 presidential debate, President Bush and Senator Kerry both agreed that the possibility of nuclear terrorism was, quote, "the single most serious threat to the U.S. national security," unquote. Former CIA Director George Tenet said this, quote: "Al Qaida continues to pursue its strategic goal of obtaining nuclear weapons," unquote. The words of the now-current director of the CIA, Porter Goss, quote: "It may only be a matter of time before Al Qaida or another group attempts to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear devices," unquote. And the words of our current FBI Director, Bob Mueller, quote: "Intelligence continues to show Al Qaida's clear intention to obtain and ultimately use some form of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear material in its attacks against the United States," unquote. ROEMER: Furthermore, the judgment of a CIA Counterterrorism Center expert: "Al Qaida probably has access," this person says, "to nuclear expertise and facilities, and there is the real possibility of the group developing a crude nuclear device." And finally, coming from the Robb-Silberman Commission put together by the president of the United States -- they say, quote: "The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Al Qaida was capable of fabricating at least a crude nuclear device if it could obtain the requisite nuclear material," unquote.

We know Al Qaida wants to get these weapons. We know Osama bin Laden has instructed his people to get these weapons. Our political leaders know this. So what are we doing about it? Are we making this the kind of priority that those kinds of facts have outlined? The main problem that Senator Nunn has worked so hard to try to achieve is trying to secure the material used to build these nuclear devices. Hundreds of tons of loose nuclear materials lie relatively unprotected in Russia. Over 100 lightly guarded nuclear research reactors from the Congo to Central Asia contain the material necessary to build a nuclear weapon. Security remains a huge problem. At a nuclear power plant in the Ukraine, a guard was bribed for $77 -- $77 for a bribe. In 2005, CIA Director Porter Goss said, quote, "There is sufficient material unaccounted for so that it would be possible for those who know how to construct a nuclear weapon," unquote, to possibly use something like that.

Our challenge is clear. The 9/11 Commission proposals are clear. Yet Congress and the administration have not sufficiently reacted. To prevent a nuclear 9/11, we must lock down more nuclear weapons, more pounds of potential bomb-making material, do more on Proliferation Security Initiative, do more on cooperative arrangements with other countries, and do more in Congress and the White House to protect this country against this threat. We said on the 9/11 Commission there needed to be maximum effort and a sense of urgency. The sense of urgency is more a mood of complacency today. Rather than a brisk pace of activity, we are more saying: Business-as-usual approach. President Bush has said, and I quote, "We must do everything in our power," unquote, to prevent nuclear terrorism. I agree with these words, but we need more work in this area. When we invest less than a quarter of 1 percent of our defense budget on efforts to prevent nuclear terrorism, is that doing everything in our power? I don't think so. When we move the timetable from four years to 14 years, is that doing everything in our power? I don't think so. We must move ahead with the speed and sense of purpose equivalent to the task of defeating the enemy ahead. We have called this conference today to bring together some of the most respected and talented public servants and academic experts in the country.

Our hope, my prayer, is the people of goodwill and the United States Congress will work together in a bipartisan way with this administration so that we find renewed commitment to ensure that we keep the world's worst weapons out of the most dangerous hands. The 9/11 Commission has proposed three ideas, three ideas in our 9/11 Commission, to try to make sure that this -- a nuclear catastrophe -- doesn't happen in the United States. We have not seen those three recommendations passed by the Congress and the White House. So we want to try to prevent this by passing these reforms. And we think that, just as Graham Allison up at Harvard has said, that, "This is a preventable catastrophe. You can pass measures to try to protect the United States and the world from this kind of catastrophe." ROEMER: I look forward to hearing from our guests, and I would challenge the administration and Congress. If not our three proposals, what three proposals do you want to pass? If not now, when? If not these, what? Let's work together to make this country safer. I look forward to hearing from our guests in a lively and, I hope, entertaining forum today. And I want to introduce one of my good friends to talk about this problem and some of the accomplishments that he has seen in the last several years with his proposal, the Cooperative Threat Reduction Initiative. Senator Sam Nunn has served as the United States senator from Georgia from 1972 to 1996. One of his great legislative accomplishments, among many, is one that bears his name, the Nunn- Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which provides assistance primarily to Russia and the former Soviet republics for securing and destroying excess nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Senator Nunn serves today as co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit organization working to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. He has been an outstanding leader on national security issues for generations. We are, indeed, fortunate to have his leadership, his courage and his insight here this morning.

Senator Nunn, thank you.

Sam Nunn: Thank you very much, Tim. Well, appreciate very much your leadership, the leadership of Lee Hamilton, Tom Kean and the entire commission. And it's a great pleasure to be able to address this panel and this audience here today. You mentioned the last best chance. As you know, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the organization that I co-chair -- we're dedicated to try to do everything we can to reduce the risk of the use of, or proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Along that line, we believe that heightening the awareness of the citizens in this country and around the globe is absolutely essential and imperative to that task. That's why we produced this video docudrama called "The Last Best Chance," which portrays a terrorist plot to set off nuclear weapons both in the United States and in Europe. This is about 45-minute film. We are giving it away as long as our funds hold out. If anybody wants to order one, it's lastbestchance.org. And we encourage you to not only see it yourself but also to share it with others and to express your views on this to people who are in government, policy-makers, as to what we see to be the priorities -- and I'm going to outline some of them today. So, Tim, to you and the entire commission, I say thank you. We believe that seeing the danger is the first step to improving security, and that public understanding is absolutely essential if we are to meet these challenges head on and if we are to get them on the front burner and keep them on the front burner for policy-makers. In that spirit, we believe the country owes you and every member of the 9/11 Commission a huge debt of gratitude. You made the nation aware of the threats we face and the key steps we have to take to make ourselves more secure. This book outlines them very, very well. But I believe your greatest contribution is what you and the commission members are doing after you have completed your primary task. I think the secondary task is just as important as the primary task.

You've refused to go away. You've refused to let this book just sit on the shelf. Instead, you are doing the job until the government does its job. And I think that's enormously important. So I thank you for your hard work, for your vision for a more secure America and world, and most of all for your persistence and your absolute dedication and determination. The 9/11 Commission report said clearly we have to make a maximum effort to prevent a nuclear 9/11. And Commission Chairman Tom Kean and Vice Chair Lee Hamilton and you, Congressman Roemer, have emphasized this in your public remarks. I agree. In my view, the threat of terrorism with nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction presents the gravest danger to our nation and to the world. We know that Al Qaida is seeking nuclear weapons. As you laid out very clearly, Mr. Chairman, we don't know how many other groups may also have similar ambitions. NUNN: I recall very well, because I conducted the investigation in 1995 and '96, of the Aum Shinrikyo chemical attack in a Tokyo subway. And I recall very well that at that time, at the time that attack occurred, this organization had been in existence for several years. It had members in Russia. It had recruited scientist working in Russian labs. It owned a radio station in Vladivostok. It had over a billion dollars in assets. It had bought land in Australia and was conducting sarin gas tests against sheep. And some believe it was also seeking natural uranium. And it had also sent a team to investigate the ebola virus, as to how they could pick that up and spread it in Africa. All of that occurred and yet neither our FBI nor CIA had ever heard of the organization until that attack occurred in 1995. So we don't know how many other groups may be out there. We're focused on Al Qaida; properly so. But we ought to also focus much more broadly, and we ought to recognize that no matter who's seeking weapons and materials, we have to lock them down everywhere they are, all over the world. And we have to get cooperation to do that. We know that the nuclear material that would be desired by Al Qaida is housed in many poorly secured sites around the globe. We believe that if they get that material, they can build a nuclear weapon. And we believe that if they build a nuclear weapon, they'll use it. That's at least the premise on which our organization proceeds, and we think it is the correct premise.

And I believe that we are on the same wavelength, Mr. Chairman, with your commission. A terrorist nuclear attack in one of our cities could kill hundreds of thousands of people. It could shatter our economy, erode our civil liberties, give blackmail power to the terrorist group that carried out the attack. And would also give what I call disruptive threat power to other groups or individuals who have no nuclear weapons, but who do have destructive intent. You imagine people claiming all over the globe they are going to blow up another city after the first one goes up. That's the kind of horror that we would face. So American citizens, and I think citizens all over the globe, have every reason to ask, "Are we all doing all we can to prevent a nuclear attack?" The answer is, no, we are not. We have, however, taken important steps. I think it's important for people to realize that there is a foundation here, and that steps have been taken and that people are doing work, good work. So let me name a few to try to put this whole matter in some perspective. First of all, the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program has been working since 1991 to secure and destroy weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union. This has been, in effect, a program working with the Russians. In addition to helping Russia remove and safeguard thousands of warheads and dangerous materials, this funding helped Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus implement a critically important decision to give up all of their nuclear weapons. So instead of having four fingers on the nuclear trigger after 1991, the break up of the empire, we ended up with only Russia. That was a huge, huge accomplishment, and we should in no way diminish that because it is enormously, enormously important. Many people don't realize it, but 20 percent of our electricity in this country comes from nuclear power. And what is not realized is that 50 percent of the nuclear material that goes into producing the nuclear power comes from highly enriched uranium that was in warheads formerly aimed at America. So theoretically, one out of 10 light bulbs come from highly enriched uranium that was formerly in weapons aimed at American cities that was dismantled, reprocessed into lower enriched uranium, sold to America, and burned in our power plants. And that program is ongoing. It has another 10 years to run. Three years ago, the G-8 made a commitment to match the United States in threat reduction funding each year for the next 10 years. Another enormously important development.

The non-G-8 nations have joined this emerging global partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction. So this is a program that G-8 has spearheaded. A number of other non-G-8 countries have joined, and the job now is to get the G-8 to live up to its commitment. I think that is enormously important. Everyone who has a voice should not only ask what the G-8 is going to be doing at Gleneagles this summer on new initiatives, but what they've done with the last initiatives, which have yet to be fulfilled. Last year, former Secretary of Energy Abraham and his Russian counterpart launched a global threat reduction initiative to remove and secure highly enriched uranium from research facilities around the globe. We at NTI call this the global clean-out. We've been preaching this gospel the last five years. We are very proud that it is now an initiative endorsed by the U.S. and Russian government. It is just starting. NUNN: It has a long way to go. There are over 40 countries with enough highly enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon and over 100 research facilities spread throughout the globe. Those facilities must be either closed down or converted to low- enriched uranium. And in the meantime, the highly enriched uranium has to be secured. That is an absolute imperative. In 2003, on the good news side, Libya committed to give up its nuclear weapons program, adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Test Ban Treaty and signed the additional protocol that would allow the IAEA to do more intrusive monitoring of the country's nuclear facility; a big breakthrough. In April 2004, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution that requires countries to establish and strengthen domestic laws against export, sale or transfer of nuclear materials and technology and establish stringent standards for nuclear material security; a very solid foundation if implemented. The Bush administration also has worked with other nations on the Proliferation Security Initiative, which allows nations to interdict transport of nuclear weapons that deliver systems and related technology; another enormously important initiative. But I want to emphasize that the hardest place for terrorists to achieve their purpose of getting a nuclear weapon is where it is situated, where it's located.

Once they have got it, dealing with it in international commerce is really like a needle in a haystack. It doesn't mean we don't try, but the easiest job for us is securing the material where it is in connection with other countries. Once it leaves that source, our job multiplies enormously in terms of difficulty. These are all indispensable steps toward greater security. The two presidents, President Bush and President Putin, at their most recent summit meeting agreed to enhance and accelerate cooperation to secure at-risk weapons and materials. They said all the right things but somehow or another, when they leave the summit, there's not the follow-through that we need. So I think all of our job is to take those words and say to policymakers in this country and Russia and everywhere else, the G-8 and so forth, that, "These are your words; now we want deeds, we want programs, we want you to really do what you have pledged to do." All of these are very important steps. It is essential now that both Presidents Bush and Putin become personally involved in eliminating the bureaucratic disputes that have blocked our progress, that they provide more resources and that they lead a global effort to address and reduce the nuclear threat. Nothing is more urgent.

I would start, Mr. Chairman, by saying that I hope in the next 30 days, the liability issue that has really, kind of, gummed up the works on the Nunn-Lugar program off and on for the last five years; it's interrupted Pete Domenici's initiative with the plutonium disposition program; the question, who's liable if something bad happens while we are dealing with these materials in Russia -- that liability issue has got to be solved. It is not that hard an issue. Common sense can solve it. Leadership can solve it. And I would plead with President Bush and President Putin to solve it in the next 30 days, announce it at Gleneagles, because it is absolutely a road block that has got to be removed. Increasingly, we are being warned that an act of nuclear terrorism is inevitable. I'm not willing to concede that point, but I do believe that unless we greatly elevate our effort and the speed of our response, we could face disaster. As I view it, Mr. Chairman, we are in a race between cooperation and catastrophe and the threat is outrunning our response. Let me offer my own, admittedly highly subjective, evaluation of our progress -- by "our" I mean the United States and Russia. In measuring the adequacy of our response to today's nuclear threats on the scale of one to 10. I would give us, overall -- and you can break it down into components -- but I would give us overall about a three out of 10, with the recent summit between President Bush and President Putin, because of their strong pledges, moving us closer to a number four. The reason I rate the United States and Russia is because we have to have cooperation in order to get this job done. And to rate only the United States is to indicate that we can wave a wand, and if we do everything right all is going to be well in the world. Not true. We've got to have help, we've got to have Russia's help and we've got to have help around the globe.

Let me explain, Mr. Chairman, my sense of urgency and why, despite all the important steps that I've outlined and we've taken, I would give us such a low mark, three or four out of 10. Let me describe four nuclear-related threats we face today. And I'll really just outline three of them and incorporate the other one in the record in the interest of time. Threat number one: Let's assume for a moment that a terrorist group gains access to nuclear material, builds a weapon and blows up one of the great cities of the world, whether it's New York or Moscow or London or Paris.

NUNN: The day after, what would we wish we had done to prevent it? I believe we would wished we would have made our top priority a global effort to upgrade the security of all nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material at their source to prevent theft or diversion. I believe we would wish that we, the United States and Russia, had insisted on bilateral, transparent accountability of tactical nuclear weapons in both the United States and the Russian arsenals. These are small battlefield weapons that can be transported by one person, put in the back of a truck, and blow up a large part of a city of the world. We don't know how many tactical weapons the Russians have or where they are located. We hope they do, but we are not confident of that. Every time I have spoken on this subject, someone in Russia will pick it up and pretend I am talking about unilateral Russian disarmament and unilateral Russian giving America access to its tactical nuclear facilities. I am not talking about that. I am talking about bilateral, I am talking about mutual, I am talking about reciprocal, I am talking about fairness, and I am talking about a threat that, if anything, is greater to the Russian people than to the American people. And I think those thoughtful people in Russia recognize that. So I want to make that absolutely clear for the record.

This is a concept that would be mutual, reciprocal and bilateral. I believe that we would wish that the G-8's global partnership against the spread of weapons and weapons materials had met its commitments and directed its resources aggressively against the most urgent dangers, as it pledged to do almost three years ago in Canada. But those pledges, most of them, have not been met. They have gotten up to only $17 billion of the $20 billion pledged. And most of those pledges have not turned into programs, for, among many other reasons, some of the blockade issues, like the liability issue that I just mentioned. I believe we would wish we had moved faster to implement the Global Threat Reduction Initiative to remove and secure nuclear weapons materials from research reactors around the globe. As I mentioned, at NTI, we call this the global clean-out. It has just begun.

There is a huge job ahead that requires U.S. and Russian leadership, G-8 leadership and the leadership of many nations around the globe. It requires cooperation. I believe we would wish we'd stopped commerce in highly enriched uranium, thereby cutting off the wide distribution of this bomb-making material around the globe. It will not be instant. It will not be easy. But it has to be done. We simply can't live with highly enriched uranium being used in commerce around the globe for the next 10, 20, 30 years without expecting and almost predicting an absolute disaster. We've got to face up to that issue. The day after, I believe we'd wish we had done all of these things. And my question to all of us this morning is why aren't we doing them now.

Threat number two: Now imagine a terrorist group with insider help that acquires radiological material and detonates a dirty bomb in New York City's financial district, dispersing radiation across a 60- square-block area. The day after a dirty bomb attack, what would we have wished we had done to prevent that and to mitigate the damage if, God forbid, it occurs? I believe we would wish that we'd worked harder to develop a risk-based global inventory of vulnerable radioactive sources and that we'd prioritized our efforts to secure them through a partnership effort throughout the globe. I believe we would wished we'd worked harder to secure radioactive sources at every stage of their life cycle, from their production through their shipment, use and disposal; a cradle-to-grave approach to dangerous nuclear materials. I believe that is essential. I believe that we would wish we'd accelerated the stockpiling of equipment at key locations and ensured that first responders had plans, protective gear and decontamination equipment in place. And I believe that we would wish we'd greatly accelerated training exercises and mounted a serious public education program to mitigate the consequences of such an attack. The day after, I believe we would wished we had done each of these things. And my question to all of us, again, this morning is why aren't we doing them now?

Mr. Chairman, I will skip scenario number three. It relates to the imperative of us understanding, in our nuclear force posture deliberations, which we don't do nearly enough, that we have an absolute imperative stake in the accuracy of the Russian warning systems. Their warning systems, their satellite systems, their radar systems have gone down very substantially since the end of the Cold War, and they still have thousands of weapons pointed at America on hair trigger. We have a stake in those warning systems working correctly. If their warning systems don't work, we could be the victims in our own country. So we have to deal with that. We have to begin to take a look at hair trigger in both inventories. NUNN: We have to begin to work on a mutual basis on that. We have to have confidence and assurance on each other's warning systems, and I think we need to increase the decision-making time of the president of the United States and the president of Russia. If a Russian general ever walks in to the president of Russia and says to him, "I think, Mr. President, we have a missile attack launch from America. We can't be sure. Our warning systems aren't very good, but we have only seven, eight, 10 minutes to decide whether to launch a counter-attack or lose our weapons," I want the president of Russia to have an hour to make up that decision, and then I want him to have a week and then I want him to have a month. That's the direction we need to be working in. It's not easy. It involves a lot of discussion.

But I at least think in 10 years after the Cold War, both of our presidents need to have time to have a black cup of coffee if they have been out to a cocktail party before they launch weapons that could basically terminate the existence of our country and, indeed, a lot of mankind. Let's imagine -- on threat number four -- a sharp increase in the number of nuclear weapon states, including North Korea and Iran. Unfortunately, as we all know, this is getting a lot easier to imagine. As Iran and North Korea become nuclear weapon states, other nations begin re-examining their options and following their example. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty becomes an artifact of history. After this occurs, what would we wish we had done to prevent it? I believe that we would wish that we and our allies had developed a time-urgent, coordinated and direct diplomatic effort with North Korea and Iran to end their nuclear weapon programs using both carrots and sticks. And that means very simply, we need to cook our carrots, and our allies need to sharpen their sticks. We do not have that kind of coordinated approach vis-a-vis North Korea, nor do we have that kind of coordinated approach vis-a-vis Iran, and we must have. I believe we would wish that nuclear weapon states, especially the United States and Russia, had visibly and steadily reduced their reliance on nuclear weapons at a time when we are asking others to renounce nuclear weapons.

In other words, I believe we would wish that we had set an example of devaluing rather than enhancing the importance of nuclear weapons. I believe that we would wish we had followed the Treaty of Moscow with other substantive actions by adding benchmarks for progress, mechanisms for verification, timetables for reductions, and an obligation to eliminate warheads. And I believe that we would wish we and other nations had insisted on a system of stronger rules and much stronger enforcement to prevent nations from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. I also believe that we would wish we had created a nuclear cartel, as recommended by IAEA Director ElBaradei. That cartel would be made up of states with fuel cycle facilities, guaranteeing nuclear fuel at favorable market rates to other states but only if they agreed never to develop their own capacity to make nuclear weapons materials.

The day after we wake up and discover several new nations with their fingers on the nuclear trigger and with dramatically increased opportunity for terrorists to gain nuclear material, I believe we would wish we had done all of these things. And again my question is, why aren't we doing them now? During the Cold War, we saw what it looks like when world leaders unite, when they listen to each other, when they cooperate against common threats. It is my hope that we will soon employ this model of international teamwork in responding to the threats from North Korea and Iran, in securing nuclear materials around the globe and in confronting the danger of catastrophic terrorism anywhere in the world. The United States and its partners must be as focused on fighting the nuclear threat in this century as we were in fighting the communist threat in the last century. Why wait until the day after? Why aren't we doing it now? Mr. Chairman, you and the 9/11 Commission are leading the way to do it now, and I thank you. (APPLAUSE)

ROEMER: Thank you, Senator. You can see why somebody mentioned on the editorial Washington Post page the other day that Sam Nunn should be a bipartisan ambassador working on some of the most important national security problems for our country. Very helpful, terrific remarks, Sam. Thank you so much for your insight and time spent on this very important problem for the country.

ROEMER: I want to start by just saying that the 9/11 Commission is working on these set of hearings, because when we had the opportunity to work with the Congress and the president, we passed on December 17, 2004, out of our 41 recommendations, about 50 percent of those recommendations. But none of those included the provisions on fighting nuclear terrorism.

So we are here today and tomorrow and next month and hopefully next year so that we can work with Congress and the administration to do more on this very important problem. Senator, I wanted to ask you a question. We will be doing a report card in September from the 9/11 Commission grading the progress or the lack of progress on some of these issues. And you and I were just talking about report cards. Three of my four children just received their report cards, getting out of school for the summertime, a 12, a 10, and an 8-year-old. Report cards are pretty important to try to assess both effort and grade. My first question to you, Senator, would be, what kind of effort, maximum effort is the Congress and the administration putting forth on this critically important problem that you just addressed, that we address? If you could grade both the Congress and the administration. I know you gave kind of a three, possibly a four on a scale of 10. But talk in a little bit more detail about the commission's maximum effort that is needed on this problem.

NUNN: Mr. Chairman, talking about your son, I remember, I saw a cartoon not long ago I got a kick out of. This little kid was showing his father the report card, and it had all Fs on the report card, and his father was about to explode, and he looked up and said, "Pop, I don't know whether it's the genes or the environment." (LAUGHTER) So I don't know whether it's genes or the environment, but I don't give...

ROEMER: Is this my grade or the administration's grade? (LAUGHTER)

NUNN: I don't give us very good marks. As I said, I think you have to put Russia and the United States in the same grading category, because to grade the United States as if we can do it all alone is not the reality. We at our foundation are struggling with trying to find a way to communicate with the Russian people, because they have just as much threat as we do -- probably more. I mean, there are a lot of people that would like to blow up Moscow. And I think some of them know that, but generally speaking, we still have the Cold War hanging on, and they suspect that we are spying, and we suspect that they are stealing, and when you get through all of that, the suspicions too often block progress. So I give overall grade of about three to four.

If I were looking for high grades, breaking it down, I would give us high grades on moving the four weapons states in 1992, '93, '94, and '95, in that time frame, from four weapon states to one. Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus had more weapons than all the rest of the countries in the world combined, except the U.S. and Russia -- more than China, more than France, more than Great Britain. They all got rid of them, and that was a 10. That was a 10. In terms of weapon-grade materials, in Russia and the former Soviet Union, on a scale of one to 10, I would give us about a five there. We have helped them secure about 50 percent of their materials. That's the good news.

The bad news is about 50 percent has not been secured to our standards. On the question of the G-8, global partnership, they have pledged to match the United States Nunn-Lugar funding, a billion a year for 10 years. That's a total of $20 billion. $17 billion has been pledged. Almost none has been spent of their money. I think you'd have to give them a seven or eight on the basis of the declaration of intent. I would give them a two or three in terms of implementation. That's the G-8 kind of grade. In terms of tactical nuclear weapons -- the battlefield nuclear weapons that, again, are a terrorist's dreams -- and we don't have good counts on those. We don't know where they are, so forth. This is where we need mutual accountability and transparency between the United States and Russia.

On a scale of one to 10, I would give the United States and Russia only a one there, and the one would be for former president -- first President Herbert Walker Bush's initiative to help incentivize the Russians to get them all back in Russia, back when he was president of the United States. That was a big move. They did get them back in Russia, they are not spread all over 12 time zones, but Russia itself is many time zones, and they, as far as we know, are spread around Russia. So I give us a one, meaning that's a very, very poor grade.

NUNN: On biological transparency -- and here we're not going to talk about it that much this morning, but the biological threat, in the long run, in my view, is just as grave as the nuclear threat. And on that one, we have no transparency, we have no accountability, we have very little cooperation with the Russians. We are doing some things under the Nunn-Lugar program, but I would give us no more than a two or three on biological. On chemical destruction, we have got all these plans, and we have got a place called Shchuchye, where there are 1,971,000 artillery tubes full of nerve gas, enough -- Dr. Carter, you will hear from in a moment. He is our mathematician. We went over there and we put on gas masks and went in those buildings. Most of them are not well enough built to house your favorite horse, let alone chemical weapons that could wipe out mankind. But Ash Carter computed there was enough stored at that one site to wipe out everybody on the face of the Earth several times over, if properly disseminated -- a nerve gas canister that could fit in a brief case and would be a terrorist's dream. So we haven't started the destruction. That's another one that's been held up by bureaucracy. I'd give us, on chemical destruction, seven or eight on intent, two or three on implementation.

The Congress -- it's hard to grade, but I would give Congress, in terms of supporting the Nunn-Lugar program, laying the foundation, passing it at a time that was very difficult, continuing to support it in spite of a lot of opposition -- I would give Congress seven or eight. In terms of putting restrictions on, which make the president certify all of these things that, frankly speaking, all of them -- we want them to happen. Every one of them is a good certification. But if you back off of it and look at it, if you can't certify them, it means the Russians aren't cooperating on this, aren't cooperating on that. It probably means we need the Nunn-Lugar program more, not less. But if the certification can't be made, they can't spend the money.
It has held up the programs -- these certifications have held up the programs over and over again. They have interrupted them, they've wasted money, they've made them inefficient. They need to either get rid of the certifications or give the president a permanent waiver -- and Senator Lugar is working on that point, and he ought to be joined by colleagues in the House and Senate. So that is kind of -- it's probably more than you want to know, but that's a score card of a lot of different categories, and I probably left some of them out. I would have to add... (CROSSTALK)

ROEMER: ... tough grader, too. (LAUGHTER)

NUNN: I would have to add Libya on the good side. The breakthrough in Libya, I would give a 10. The Khan network breakup, which was our worst nightmare -- a guy that knows all about this stuff sharing it, selling it all over the globe, transporting parts -- I'd give us a five for breaking it up -- well, more than that for breaking it up. But we don't know what we don't know. We haven't gotten any cooperation from him. So we don't know what he may have done that we don't know about. So I couldn't give us -- I'd give a high grade for stopping it, but I would give us somewhere around a five in terms of really knowing what's going on there.

ROEMER: You talked, Senator, a little bit about security upgrades in the former Soviet Union. According to reports that we have, comprehensive security upgrades have been completed for just 26 percent of the roughly 600 tons of nuclear bomb-making material in the former Soviet Union. So only 26 percent completed -- 600 tons of bomb-making material. I understand, at that pace, it will take another 12 years to complete those security upgrades. Do we have 12 years? Do we have seven years? Do we have four years to do this, given what we'll probably hear from Juliette Kayyem, that these terrorists want to get these weapons now? What is our time frame? Why is it that our time frame seems to move backwards and the terrorists' time frame seems to speed up?

NUNN: Well, Mr. Chairman, I think you put your finger on it. From my perspective, the terrorists are racing and we are somewhere between a walk and a crawl, depending on the day of the week. I think the question of how much we've secured is kind of complex. You are absolutely right, 26 percent is the number for comprehensive. If you talk about rapid upgrades, we have done about 50 percent of the sites themselves. It's less than 50 percent of the material. Some of the rapid upgrades don't need comprehensive, so it's a little bit hard to gauge, so I would roughly say we have done about 50 percent of the job. The Department of Energy tells us that, last year, in '04, they secured less than they did in '03. Part of that is because of the liability issue and a lot of other issues that are slowing this program down, which have got to be removed. But they believe that we are going to go up in '05 and '06, and we are going to begin taking out buildings that have more material. So based on that, I think 50 percent is roughly the right number.

ROEMER: And do you have a grade that you would assign on that?

NUNN: On this one, I would give about a five out of 10.

ROEMER: Five out of 10, OK.

NUNN: About a five out of 10.

ROEMER: With respect to the average American who probably is watching today on CSPAN, and they might ask you, Senator -- I get this question sometimes with regard to these very important programs, and it's a very good one, it's a very fair one -- they may say to you, "Hey, Tim Roemer, Sam Nunn, why should American taxpayers have to fund a Russian problem?" How would you respond to that kind of question from our taxpayers given what you've talked about in this movie is what could happen to an American city or a European city, or even a city in Russia?

NUNN: Well, it's fundamentally a Russian responsibility, but it's our security. It's primarily Russia's job for doing it and we could take a position that we're not going to help at all, but what we will be doing is jeopardizing our own security and our own future. And even if a weapon goes off in Moscow, the feeling around the globe would be, economically speaking, that it could go off in America next, because some terrorist group had the capability of doing it. So I think wherever a weapon goes off, it jeopardizes the world economy. The answer is we've got a huge amount at stake. We do not believe the Russians will, themselves, do the job as rapidly as it needs to be done. They will eventually do it as their economy improves, because it's in their security interests. But I don't think we can take 50 years or 25 years to get this job done. I think we need to do it now, and we need to do it in the next three or four years.

Should other countries help? Yes. Should we go forward even if they don't? Yes. Is it hard dealing with Russia? Yes. But should we really be patient and deal with them? Yes. Should we continue to treat Russia as a supplicant? No. Russia ought to be a partner. We ought to basically have an atmosphere and a psychology with Russia, "You have been a great power, you will be again. You need to do this job with us all over the globe." Russia can help us with a lot of countries in getting these research reactors closed down where we don't have the influence to do that. There are a number of countries that we just can't do it ourselves. Our diplomacy is not taken very seriously in those countries. Russia can help that. Russia has this huge stockpile of chemical weapons, and they can never meet their chemical weapon obligations without our assistance and the assistance of other countries. Russia not only -- the Soviet Union not only didn't abide by the biological treaty; they made certain weapons back in the Soviet days like smallpox that were resistant to all known vaccines. So they have the expertise to develop very horrible biological weapons. We have tried on the Nunn-Lugar to employ a lot of their scientists to give them an outlet so they will not end up in those kind of endeavors around the globe -- 20,000, 30,000 of them have been employed. That's in our security interests. You could ask why should we employ them? But it's because we're trying to protect America. That's the bottom line.

ROEMER: I think we want to talk a little bit more about that if we have some more time. I want to ask you with regard to the Russian cooperation, are they throwing up obstacles? Are there bureaucratic problems there? What is the best single answer to solving some of those problems? And then secondly, Senator, if you'd address -- the Nunn-Lugar program is about 13 years old and it was started as a bilateral program directly between the United States and the former Soviet Union.
Would you recommend that we have bilateral programs to globalize Nunn-Lugar in the future? Did you set up these kinds of arrangements with other countries directly? Or is there a way to globalize this Cooperative Threat Reduction Program and how would you suggest that, given the threats from North Korea and Iran?

NUNN: I think on the first question, are the Russians putting up obstacles, they are on the biological side. And this is one where President Bush and Putin need to break through. They need to say to both the Russian bureaucracy and the U.S. bureaucracy, "We want you to cooperate. We demand you cooperate on the biological side." We do certain defensive efforts on the biological side. Other countries, if they were doing them, we would probably suspect they were doing offensive experiments. I don't think we are. I trust our government on the biological declarations that we're not doing offensive weapons. But there is a thin line between defense and offense. We need bilateral, in this case, transparency with the Russians on all defensive work on biological, and that means real transparency. That means working together. It means getting Russian scientists involved with NIH. It's a big gulp, but they know more than we do in some cases. We need their help. They need to be in the tent. We're going to have to have a psychological breakthrough, and it can probably only be done at the presidential level. We've done a lot of that on the nuclear side -- labs working together and so forth -- but not on the biological side. Are they putting up obstacles? Yes, although I must say that I think that we have been part of the problem, too. I think on the liability issue -- who is responsible in the case of an accident -- both parties are going to have to give some there. I don't think we have given nearly as much. There was an article in the Washington Post last week saying that we are now about to have a breakthrough. I hope that, one is correct. It's been an obstacle too long.

The Russians also, Mr. Chairman, particularly at local and state level over the last few years, they're desperate for revenue, and if it walks or talks, they want to tax it. And that includes foreign aid. And, you know, it's very hard to give somebody money and say, "We're going to pay you taxes because we are giving it to you." In fact, we got to draw a line there. You can't let them do that. And they do try to do that occasionally, but, again, President Putin can overcome that, and I think in most cases they have. So there are obstacles, they are putting up obstacles, but so is our bureaucracy in too many instances. On the question of bilateral or multilateral around the globe, I think it's going to vary. I think, for instance, on the breakthrough on biological, where we need to have more transparency and accountability, that's got to be bilateral to begin with. I don't think we can open that arena up to everybody in the world now. But eventually other countries ought to be part of this bilateral transparency, and scientists all over the globe are going to have to develop an ethic of dealing with dangerous pathogens. The combination of genetic engineering and computer power today has put in the hands of individuals the most God-awful capabilities potentially in the biological arena you can even imagine. So we are going to have to all understand. That's going to have to be cooperation. But I would begin with U.S.-Russia bilateral, and then I would have that one expand. I think the G-8 declaration on the nuclear side, where other countries are joining in, is a good foundation for making this a global partnership. Senator Lugar and I went to Moscow about four years ago and we had a seminar over there. We called for a global partnership against catastrophic terrorism. I think we do need a global partnership, not in terms of negotiating a treaty, but in terms of having people understand there's a mutual stake. And I think all countries that have nuclear weapons and materials must be accountable to safeguard them and secure them, and I think any country that is willing to safeguard and secure that doesn't have enough resources, there ought to be international funds to help. So that's an amorphous type of cooperative pattern that I call a global partnership against catastrophic terrorism, not just nuclear, but also chemical and biological.

ROEMER: Now, you have mentioned this liability issue two or three terms, and just to get the sense of how important this is, if the liability issue is not solved in the next few months between the Russians and the Americans, there is the chance, the likelihood that this program might go away. Is that correct? And how much time do we have to act on this to keep this program viable and operating while we negotiate this liability issue?

NUNN: Well, the plutonium disposition has already been held up for a long time. That's the one that Senator Domenici sponsored. There are other programs that are held up. Some have had to have waivers by the president, which is pretty unsatisfactory. So the liability issue is, indeed, a road block. And I think there are a number of programs that terminate in the fall. I'll furnish the precise answer for the record, Mr. Chairman, but I think there are a number of programs that terminate in the fall unless we get this road block erased. So it's imperative that Bush and Putin get it done. And I think if those two individuals say they want it done, it'll get done.

ROEMER: Finally, so that I can get to our next panel, what would you say, Senator, to the viewers, to members of Congress, to the administration, is the single most important thing that we can do in the next few months, whether that's legislation, whether that's people contacting their representatives, whether that's people voting on this issue as one of their priorities in the next election; what's the single most important thing that the American people can do to make this a higher priority than it is right now?

NUNN: I think supporting the 9/11 Commission recommendations in general. I think asking the Congress to make these front-burner issues. I think taking a look at this film and sharing it with your neighbors and telling people you want something done about this, and asking your member of Congress and your member of the Senate what they are doing and where they stand on these programs.

Are they supporting the Nunn-Lugar initiative? Are they asking the president to remove the road blocks? Are we building cooperation with other countries around the globe? I think all of those things, the citizens of the country have to do.

ROEMER: Thank you so much. Terrific job by Senator Nunn. (APPLAUSE)

And I want to welcome the next panel. And I'll start to introduce them as they come up. Senator, can you stay?

NUNN: I'd be glad to.

NUNN: Mr. Chairman, could I ask -- this is a publication that we do every year, our foundation pays for at NTI. And it's done by Matt Bunn and Anthony Wier at Harvard. And I think it's the bible of what we have been talking about this morning. It's got a summary in it, but I would hope it could be put in the record. This is the updated 2005 version.

ROEMER: Senator, your entire remarks, especially those that you left out considering time issues, will be entered into the record. "Securing the Bomb 2005: The New Global Imperatives," will be entered into the record. And as we welcome up the next panel, I will introduce them as you come up.

I just want to say if I know -- Dr. Carter said that he wants his entire talk entered into the record, and he might speak a little bit more informally, so all of the next comments will be formally entered into the record. Let me introduce our distinguished group of panelists: Dr. Ashton Carter, co-director, Preventive Defense Project at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Mr. Leonard Spector, deputy director, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies; Miss Juliette Kayyam, acting executive director for research, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government; and Mr. Steven Brill, journalist, author, entrepreneur, and founder and chairman of the America Prepared Campaign, Incorporated. I want to welcome each one of you. I want to ask you to speak for about five minutes each. I want to remind you that your entire prepared remarks are in the record, will be entered into the record. So if you have been so moved by Senator Nunn's impassioned plea to do more, I hope you will speak with that passion to our audience today. And just let me say for about 40 seconds something about my good friend who has done so much to try to move this issue in the United States Congress and his dedication of work -- Dr. Ashton Carter served as assistant secretary of defense for international security policy during President Clinton's first term. His many Pentagon responsibilities included the topics we are discussing this morning: countering weapons of mass destruction worldwide, and policy regarding the former Soviet Union with respect to its nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Dr. Carter is co-director of the Preventive Defense Project, a research collaboration of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Stanford University, and he teaches national security policy at the Kennedy School. We are indeed fortunate to have Dr. Carter with us. Please proceed.

Ashton Carter: Thank you very much, Chairman. And thank you and all the members of the 9/11 Commission for the honor and privilege of appearing before you and for the service to American and global security represented by that historic report you did. And I salute you also for sticking with it and seeing to the implementation of your recommendations.
Your report had recommendations on intelligence management, on improvements to the homeland security and counterterrorism structures of our government, and on actions to prevent weapons of mass destruction terrorism. You ask about grading. On the first, management of the intelligence function, I think it's too early to tell whether that's going to be improved or not by the appointment of a director of national intelligence. John Negroponte has only been in the job for two months. Many have wondered why the 9/11 Commission, a commission established to look into terrorism, ended up making recommendations about intelligence, but that was easy for me to understand. I've sat on many panels trying to improve one aspect or another of intelligence for a long time, and we always came up with perfectly good recommendations, but few of them were implemented, and the reason wasn't that they were poor recommendations or that they were resisted by the intelligence community, but because there was no manager of the intelligence community who could implement them. As I said before the Robb-Silberman commission which came after yours, which wrestled with weapons of mass destruction intelligence the way you wrestled with counterterrorism intelligence, the U.S. intelligence community is not so much mismanaged as it is unmanaged. Nowhere in that structure does authority, accountability and resources -- do they come together in sharp managerial focus.

CARTER: The DNI that you recommended might -- and was passed into law, at your urging -- might at last provide that focus. But I think I would have to say it's too early to tell. Likewise, even though it's been two years and not two months since the Department of Homeland Security was created, in a different way, as the centerpiece of our nation's response to homeland security, it's too early to give a grade here either because DHS has been so slow to take shape. So while it might be too early to give grades on intelligence reform and homeland security, it's not too early to give a grade to our response to the threat of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, because there's been almost none.

Here, the student dropped the course. President Bush stated that keeping the worst weapons out of the hands of the worst people was an American president's highest priority. And so it is. But so far, almost all of the government's effort -- and this is the executive branch and the legislative branch -- has been on the worst people and far less on the worst weapons. America, in my judgment, is as asleep at the WMD switch now as it was at the terrorism switch before 9/11.

And I would like to explain my assessment briefly, if I may, Chairman, by focusing on nuclear terrorism, which both President Bush and candidate Kerry, as you indicated earlier, declared to be their highest priority. What's ironic about the threat of nuclear terrorism is that it is possible to envision its complete eradication. We don't know how to eradicate terrorism as a whole, because the well springs of terrorism are in all kinds of human motivations and groups and so forth, aberrant human emotions of great variety. We don't know how to eradicate bioterrorism because infectious pathogens and the technology to devise them and spread them are ubiquitous and are an essential part of public health. But we can envision eradicating nuclear terrorism. It's very funny -- it's odd to say that but it's true. And the reason is that to make nuclear weapons, you have to have one of two metals, either highly-enriched uranium or plutonium. Neither of these materials occurs in nature. They have to be made by people. And so far in human history, only governments have had the organization, the resources and the durability to do so because it turns out, thank goodness, from nature, that it's difficult to make these materials. For now and the perceivable future, making them is beyond the reach of even well-organized and financed groups like Al Qaida and (inaudible).

So the recipe for eradicating nuclear terrorism is simple: Make sure that all HEU and plutonium made so far is safeguarded and stop more from being made where it cannot be safeguarded. It's that simple. And you can grade our progress in stopping nuclear terrorism since 9/11 by that metric. That's the best metric. And by that metric, how are we doing?

Three points. First, I will just echo and won't repeat what Sam Nunn said, the complex of U.S. and international programs that goes under the umbrella name Nunn-Lugar, which he and Senator Lugar founded, are almost unchanged in their level of activity since 9/11 -- remarkable fact. These are programs that are managed on a level of effort basis rather than a results-oriented basis. At the time we were putting together a coalition against Iraq, Sam Nunn and Dick Lugar were urging a coalition in parallel against WMD terrorism. I wish we had launched that coalition also at that time. We didn't and I think he has accurately characterized the progress there. Two, there is no international arrangement devised yet to prevent the expansion of nuclear power for electricity generation, which, in my judgment, is necessary on economic and environmental grounds from resulting in the proliferation of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capacity. This critical loophole in the way the NPT has been interpreted must be closed. And President Bush gave an important speech last February on this subject, but I am yet to see the diplomatic effort that would follow from that speech. I should mention that Senator Lugar has become seized of this matter and has appointed an advisory group to him of which I am co- chairman. And I am pleased to see that he is involved in this issue.

CARTER: And it's just amazing that Lugar and Nunn have been always 10 years ahead of everyone else in understanding the problems of weapons of mass destruction. Third, the administration has devised, to my way of understanding at least, no discernible strategy for stopping the North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons programs. Now, there's plenty of blame to go around here. This is not only an American problem in either case and the two situations are very different. But they have this in common: Each provides the world with a new path to nuclear terrorism.
First, if each of these countries itself has a history of terrorism, especially Iran, or sale of dangerous weapons, especially

North Korea, and each might become politically unstable en route to regime change or collapse. And second, if either of them goes nuclear, given the regions in which they are located, others in their region are likely to follow. And the more sources of fissile material and assembled bombs in more places there are, the more the chance of theft, diversion, sale to terrorists. So after 9/11, we ought to have stopped thinking of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism as separable subjects. They are not. A.Q. Khan proved that. And we are watching the worst proliferation disaster in the last 20 years unfold today in North Korea. So it's inaction in these three areas and above all, the third, that suggests to me that the lessons of 9/11 have not been learned in the field of weapons of mass destruction terrorism. The actions to stop nuclear terrorism that have been taken by us since 9/11, especially Libya and the disruption of the A.Q. Khan network, should be noted, graded highly. But others do not go to the decisive step of capping fissile material. The concept of a multilayered defense against weapons of mass destruction is sound but, in fact, for nuclear weapons, there's only one really big layer, and that's the layer around the fissile material. After that, it gets very hard to find, to stop, to protect.

The Proliferation Security Initiative, which you noted and I support, for example, stands little chance of detecting or interdicting a grapefruit-sized piece of plutonium being flown from North Korea to the Middle East in one of the many aircraft that fly there all the time, or being carried on the back of one of the many refugees who cross from North Korea into eastern China. The new office set up in homeland security, the DNDO, to find bombs in transit to the United States, also an excellent idea I supported, but get -- we have to be serious. Neither highly-enriched uranium nor plutonium is very radioactive. And so it's very hard -- these look like lumps of metal in transit. So the fundamental fact is that the way to stop nuclear terrorism is at the source and by that metric, Chairman, I think you would have to judge that our progress since 9/11 has not been what it should be. I am a physicist. The half life of plutonium-239 is 24,400 years. The half life of uranium-235 is 713 million years. Think how many turns of the wheel of human history, how many weirdo groups, how many cults, how many movements, how many countries with unstable leaders there could be during the lifetime of those materials. Once they are made, they are a lasting danger to humanity. It has to be stopped at the source.

So I think we have a war on terrorism, Chairman. We don't have a war yet on weapons of mass destruction. Americans and especially the families represented here regret that before 9/11 their government didn't take actions in the field of counterterrorism that seemed tragically obvious after the World Trade towers were down. It will be, I think, unforgivable if the overhaul of our counterproliferation efforts have to wait until after a WMD catastrophe. Thank you.

ROEMER: I am not sure we should -- I want to run out of the room and do more to pass these things now after you have said that. Let me introduce Mr. Leonard Spector, better known as Sandy Spector. Served from 1997 to January, 2001, as deputy assistant secretary for arms control and nonproliferation at the U.S. Department of Energy. His wide-ranging portfolio included DOE's initiatives for proliferation prevention and nuclear cities initiative programs, which seek to provide nondefense job opportunities for former Soviet weapon of mass destruction scientists.