[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
STOPPING THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS, COUNTERING NUCLEAR TERRORISM:
THE NPT REVIEW CONFERENCE AND THE NUCLEAR SECURITY SUMMIT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 21, 2010
__________
Serial No. 111-90
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
----------
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
Samoa DAN BURTON, Indiana
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey ELTON GALLEGLY, California
BRAD SHERMAN, California DANA ROHRABACHER, California
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York RON PAUL, Texas
DIANE E. WATSON, California JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri MIKE PENCE, Indiana
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey JOE WILSON, South Carolina
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee CONNIE MACK, Florida
GENE GREEN, Texas JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
LYNN WOOLSEY, California MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas TED POE, Texas
BARBARA LEE, California BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia
JIM COSTA, California
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona
RON KLEIN, Florida
VACANT
Richard J. Kessler, Staff Director
Yleem Poblete, Republican Staff Director
Jasmeet Ahuja, Professional Staff Member
David Fite, Senior Professional Staff Member
Jessica Lee, Professional Staff Member
Alan Makovsky, Senior Professional Staff Member
Pearl Alice Marsh, Senior Professional Staff Member
Peter Quilter, Senior Professional Staff Member
Edmund Rice, Senior Professional Staff Member
Daniel Silverberg, Senior Deputy Chief Counsel
Amanda Sloat, Professional Staff Member
Kristin Wells, Deputy Chief Counsel
Shanna Winters, General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor
Brent Woolfork, Professional Staff Member
Robert Marcus, Professional Staff Member
Diana Ohlbaum, Senior Professional Staff Member
Laura Rush, Professional Staff Member/Security Officer
Genell Brown, Senior Staff Associate/Hearing Coordinator
Riley Moore, Deputy Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable Susan F. Burk, Special Representative of the
President, for Nuclear Nonproliferation, U.S. Department of
State.......................................................... 8
The Honorable Bonnie D. Jenkins, Coordinator, Threat Reduction
Programs, U.S. Department of State............................. 17
Mr. David Albright, President, Institute for Science and
International Security......................................... 45
Mr. Kenneth N. Luongo, President, Partnership for Global Security 54
Christopher Ford, Ph.D., Director, Center for Technology and
Global Security, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute............... 68
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Susan F. Burk: Prepared statement.................. 11
The Honorable Bonnie D. Jenkins: Prepared statement.............. 19
Mr. David Albright: Prepared statement........................... 48
Mr. Kenneth N. Luongo: Prepared statement........................ 57
Christopher Ford, Ph.D.: Prepared statement...................... 71
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 96
Hearing minutes.................................................. 97
The Honorable Howard L. Berman, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California, and Chairman, Committee on Foreign
Affairs: Prepared statement.................................... 99
The Honorable Mike Pence, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana: Prepared statement........................... 101
The Honorable Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, a Representative in Congress
from American Samoa: Prepared statement........................ 103
The Honorable Ted Poe, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas: Prepared statement............................. 108
The Honorable Russ Carnahan, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Missouri: Prepared statement...................... 110
The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress
from the Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement.......... 111
The Honorable Keith Ellison, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Minnesota: Prepared statement..................... 113
Written responses from the Honorable Susan F. Burk and the
Honorable Bonnie D. Jenkins to questions submitted for the
record by the Honorable Russ Carnahan.......................... 114
STOPPING THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS, COUNTERING NUCLEAR TERRORISM:
THE NPT REVIEW CONFERENCE AND THE NUCLEAR SECURITY SUMMIT
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2010
House of Representatives,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m. in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard L. Berman
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Chairman Berman. The committee will come to order. In a
moment I will recognize myself and the ranking member for up to
7 minutes each for purposes of making an opening statement, and
then I will recognize the chairman and ranking member of the
Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade Subcommittee for 3
minutes each to make opening remarks.
Without objection, all other members may submit opening
statements for the record. We have two panels today, so I think
we should do it that way.
We are all very fortunate that nuclear weapons have not
been used for nearly 65 years. For most of that time, these
fearsome weapons were confined to a handful of states. Their
use was limited, although sometimes just barely, by the Cold
War doctrines of deterrence and Mutual Assured Destruction.
But the world has changed dramatically over those six
decades. As President Obama noted in his Prague speech last
spring, I quote:
``Today, the Cold War has disappeared, but thousands
of those weapons have not. In a strange turn of
history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone
down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up.
More nations have acquired these weapons. Testing has
continued. Black market trade in nuclear secrets and
nuclear materials abound. The technology to build a
bomb has spread. Terrorists are determined to buy,
build or steal one. Our efforts to contain these
dangers are centered on a global nonproliferation
regime, but as more people and nations break the rules,
we could reach the point where the center cannot
hold.''
In short, the global nuclear nonproliferation regime faces
three fundamental challenges: Enforcement; a crisis of
confidence; and the three ``T's''--theft, trafficking and
terrorism.
To be effective, the regime's obligations and norms must be
enforceable with swift and sure punishment for serious
sanctions.
As we all know, North Korea was able to accumulate several
bombs worth of plutonium and build crude nuclear devices and
likely began a uranium enrichment program aided by A.Q. Khan's
nuclear trafficking network.
And Iran secretly built multiple uranium enrichment
facilities--also with assistance from Khan. According to
official estimates, Iran could produce enough weapons-grade
uranium for one bomb within 1 year of expelling IAEA
inspectors--assuming Iran does not have a covert enrichment
program.
Both nations pursued these clandestine activities while
they were members of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons, the cornerstone of the global nuclear
nonproliferation regime. If these states are able to escape
significant punishment--in the form of crippling sanctions,
international isolation, or other decisive action--until their
nuclear weapons capabilities and ambitions are halted and
reversed, the result could well be a cascade of new nuclear
aspirants, and the collapse of the NPT and the entire regime.
The second challenge springs, in part, from the first; the
NPT and the nuclear nonproliferation regime are facing a
``crisis of confidence'' on many fronts. Both developed and
developing states, especially those threatened by North Korea
and Iran, question whether the regime can really prevent,
punish or roll back nuclear proliferators. And developing
countries wonder if the regime really will promote their access
to civil nuclear applications, while fostering the eventual
disarmament of the five NPT-recognized ``Nuclear Weapon
States.''
The third challenge to the regime is one it was never
designed to counter: The actions of criminals and terrorists to
steal or traffic in the means to produce and to use a nuclear
or radiological weapon. Unsecured or poorly-secured nuclear-
weapons-related material and radioactive material are abundant
worldwide.
Today's hearing is intended to assess how the United States
and the international community can counter these threats
through multilateral cooperation. We will focus on two events:
The just-concluded Nuclear Security Summit and the NPT Review
Conference to come next month.
At last week's global Nuclear Security Summit, 47 countries
committed to securing all sensitive nuclear materials from
theft and use by terrorists in 4 short years. The communique
and work plan issued at the conclusion of the summit constitute
a necessary first step--but only the first step--in
accomplishing this ambitious goal. There will be a formal
follow-up meeting 6 months from now, and a second summit in 2
years.
Some have dismissed the Nuclear Security Summit for
accomplishing too little in 2 days. But these critics confuse
the first step with the journey itself.
The second major focus of this hearing will be the NPT
Review Conference that begins in less than 2 weeks.
This convocation of all 189 members of the NPT happens once
every 5 years. As often as not, these meetings have been riven
by controversy, deepening the crisis of confidence in the
efficacy of the nuclear nonproliferation regime as a whole. A
successful conference--particularly one united in its
condemnation of Iran's nuclear programs--is absolutely
essential.
To accomplish this requires leadership, especially from the
United States. And an essential part of credible leadership is
practicing what one preaches.
For many years, other states have been able to duck their
own responsibilities in sustaining the nonproliferation regime
by claiming that the United States has not done enough to
reduce its own nuclear weapons arsenal to fulfill its
commitment under the NPT toward disarmament. These states will
have a tougher case to make after the other events of the last
2 weeks.
We have witnessed the long-anticipated signature of a new
United States-Russia strategic arms reduction treaty that cuts
the arsenals of both countries by about 30 percent, and
reestablishes and streamlines the crucial monitoring and
verification regime that terminated when the START I treaty
expired in December.
We have also seen the issuance of a new U.S. Nuclear
Posture Review Report that, for the first time, elevates
halting the spread of nuclear weapons and preventing nuclear
terrorism to a core mission of U.S. nuclear strategy. The NPR
also strengthened the U.S. assurance not to use or threaten use
of nuclear weapons against NPT countries that were compliant
with their obligations under that treaty.
Critics have complained that the ``New START'' treaty does
too much or too little; that the Russians got more from it than
we did--although many Russians claim the reverse; and that it
will limit our ballistic missile defenses--except that it
doesn't.
Critics of the Nuclear Posture Review have also complained
that it does too much or too little, although the respected
Democrat and Republican statesmen who led the Congressional
Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States,
former Secretaries of Defense James Schlesinger and William
Perry, have pronounced it, ``just right.''
We have taken these steps because it is in the U.S.
national security interest to do so. The United States, and
Russia, are better off with fewer nuclear weapons--a position
strongly supported by Defense Secretary Gates and Admiral
Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And the United
States, Russia, France, the U.K. and China--have all pledged
not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states because
these ``negative security assurances'' helps us build the
international support to strengthen the nonproliferation
regime.
I am going to cut short the rest of my opening statement
and include it all in the record and turn to the ranking
member, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, for any opening remarks that she
might wish to make.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. As usual, Mr. Chairman, thank you so much
for the opportunity. Welcome to our two panels.
Mr. Chairman, the words threshold and crossroads are used
so frequently in this town that we can barely take a step
without being told that we are once again on one or at the
other, but now it is indisputable that we have reached one of
the most momentous decision points in our history. The nuclear
dam is giving way before our eyes in many aspects from North
Korea's increasing arsenal to the continuing attempts by al-
Qaeda and other extremist groups to secure a radiological bomb
or a dirty nuke.
The greatest threat that we face, however, is Iran's
acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability. Iran's leaders are
getting away with this stunning assault on U.S. and global
security while we and our allies appear to be doing nothing but
huffing and puffing. And the world is watching.
In January of last year, the new administration argued that
the lack of progress on curtailing the nuclear ambition of Iran
was due to the Bush administration's refusal to sit down and
negotiate with the Iranian regime. We were told that more
carrots and fewer sticks would do the trick.
But after months of generous offers and repeated rejections
with one deadline after another passing without action, nothing
of substance has been accomplished and Iran continues to
relentlessly move forward. As it does, the U.S. and others
place their hopes in yet another new U.N. Security Council
resolution.
Day after day we wait for Russia and China to come around
to a watered down version of the U.S. position even after they
have made it clear that they will do whatever they can to
prevent us or anyone else from putting any significant pressure
on Iran, particularly by cutting off Iran's access to refined
petroleum products.
We in Congress must not sit idly by. We must press ahead
with our efforts to apply pressure on Iran before it is too
late. H.R. 2194, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, also
known as IRPSA, was introduced by Chairman Berman and me, along
with several other members of this committee and the House. It
strikes that a key weakness on the Iranian regime, namely its
dependence on imported petroleum products, especially gasoline.
The House passed our version on December 15 by a vote of
412 to 12, and the Senate has adopted its own version. It is my
hope that conference discussions will move quickly, that the
bill will not be watered down and that we can send the
strongest version of IRPSA to the President's desk for his
signature.
Lieutenant General Burgess, the Director of the Defense
Intelligence Agency, and General Cartwright, the vice chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified last week that Iran
could produce enough bomb grade fuel for at least one nuclear
weapon within a year. The New York Times reported yesterday
that according to the Pentagon, Iran may be able to build a
missile capable of striking the United States by 2015.
Yet despite this obvious urgency, the administration
refuses to come into compliance with its legal obligations to
inform the Congress on those assisting Iran's nuclear,
biological, chemical and missile programs. The State Department
is ignoring current mandates in the Iran Sanctions Act
requiring sanctions on those who again are assisting Iranian
proliferation activities.
And despite the obvious urgency, Iran was not on the agenda
of last week's Nuclear Security Summit. All so-called
controversial items were set aside to ensure that the summit
was a success. The President did find time to go after our
ally, Israel, lecturing it on the need to sign the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty, a demand which has been at the
centerpiece of the longstanding strategy by Arab states to
distract attention from their own nuclear plans.
No mention was made, however, of Israel's unwavering stand
against Iran, nor of Israel's support of the Convention on the
Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials, the International
Convention of the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, the
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540, the Global
Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, the U.S.-led Megaport
Initiative, as well as Israel's financial and technical
assistance to and its active participation in the Illicit
Trafficking Database reporting system of the International
Atomic Energy Agency.
In the end, virtually nothing emerged from the summit but
unenforceable promises by the heads of state to do good things
that they should have done long ago. I do not expect any
greater success at the upcoming NPT Review Conference. The last
meeting, in 2005, ended in gridlock because several countries
could not bring themselves to tell Iran that it shouldn't
develop nuclear weapons nor engage in activities that could be
used for that purpose.
The problem stems from the prevailing interpretation of
Article IV as guaranteeing each signatory nation an absolute
right to enrich and reprocess nuclear fuel as long as they
claim that it is for peaceful purposes, but a fair reading of
Article IV reveals no such grant. Instead, Article IV places
far-reaching conditions on the exercise of this supposed right,
namely conformity with the overarching purpose of the entire
document, which is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
If we are to secure our survival and to effectively prevent
the world's most dangerous weapons from falling into the hands
of rogue regimes like Iran, the United States must state
clearly and repeatedly our position on Article IV of the NPT
that contains no guarantee of an absolute right to such
technology.
Due to time, Mr. Chairman, I will refrain from addressing
other issues relating to the topic of today's hearing,
including the recent START agreement and the Nuclear Posture
Review. Many aspects of these are troubling and some are
dangerous.
I look forward to discussing these, Mr. Chairman, at a
future hearing. Thank you for the time, sir.
Chairman Berman. I thank you. And now Mr. Sherman, the
gentleman from California, chairman of the Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Trade Subcommittee, is recognized for 3
minutes.
Mr. Sherman. President Obama should be commended for
putting importance and focus on nonproliferation for our
successes at the Nuclear Security Summit and with the START
Treaty.
We have done a lot to cause responsible countries to act
responsibly with regard to their nuclear materials. However,
there is a bipartisan foreign policy embraced by our media,
academia and the State Department under the last three
administrations which can only be viewed as a megaton of
failure when it comes to preventing irresponsible states from
developing nuclear weapons.
We are told that missile defense will be the answer, but
you can smuggle a weapon into the United States inside a bale
of marijuana. You can thereby have pinpoint accuracy as to
where you deliver it plus plausible deniability. If an American
city is destroyed, it will probably not be a missile that
delivers the bomb.
And we were told that deterrence will be enough because,
after all, we survived the Cuban Missile Crisis with luck and
with cool heads. But how many more times dare we roll the dice
when we go eyeball to eyeball with other hostile nuclear
states, and do we really think that Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong-Il
will be as responsible in the future as Khrushchev was during
the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Two illustrations of the failure of our policy. The first
is the continuing illegality at the State Department where they
violate the Iran Sanctions Act every day for over 10 years. CRS
and the State of Florida have each identified well over 30
action investments in the Iran oil sector that should have
triggered, at minimum, identification by the State Department.
That is not optional. You can waive sanctions. You cannot waive
naming and shaming, and yet three administrations have decided
to violate U.S. law to protect Tehran's business partners.
Likewise, the State Department unfortunately seems to
interpret Article IV of the NPT as saying that any nation in
compliance with NPT has an inalienable right to the full fuel
cycle. That renders the NPT a virtual nullity as a practical
matter.
But the greatest problem is that we have a policy of
begging and persuading Russia and China to help us with
sanctions, but we refuse to threaten or bargain. As a result,
China is told they will have full access to American markets,
even though they subsidize North Korea, invest in Iran and
protect Iran from international sanctions.
Russia is told that our policies toward South Ossetia or
Trans-Dniester Moldova will not be affected by their policies
toward Iran. No wonder we have failure. It is surprising that
such a broad array of the foreign policy establishment embraces
this policy of failure.
Chairman Berman. The time of the gentleman has expired. The
gentleman from California, Mr. Royce, ranking member of the
subcommittee, is recognized for 3 minutes.
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief. As a
subcommittee chairman, I held a hearing in 2005 previewing the
last NPT Review Conference. Not much was accomplished in New
York back then at the conference. That wasn't because the past
administration was involved, as we are likely to hear, but
because the treaty has some fundamental problems.
For one, the zero nuclear weapons world that it is premised
upon appears in the back mirror. China and Pakistan and others
are bolstering their arsenals. These countries remain
unimpressed by the New START, and unfortunately the majority of
countries have shown little interest in taking meaningful
action against those exiting the treaty, such as nuclear North
Korea, or those racing toward nuclear weapons, mainly Iran.
Another big problem is that the NPT Treaty has been twisted
to permit countries to develop the technology to enrich
uranium, leaving them essentially nuclear weapon states without
violating the NPT. Now, I think it is an NPT violation, but
that is the way it has been twisted.
As the New York Times reported on Secretary Gates' wake up
memo, and I will use the New York Times' words here, ``Iran
could assemble all the major parts it needed for a nuclear
weapon--fuel, designs and detonators--but stop just short of
assembling a fully operational weapon and remain a signatory of
the NPT.'' Neither this nor past administrations have
challenged this misinterpretation, deeply wounding the treaty.
The NPT Review Conference operates on consensus, which
assures lowest common denominator results. One hundred and
eighty-nine countries will be there, including Iran. That makes
the 15 member Security Council look efficient and look
virtuous. The unfortunate fact is that many countries are
sympathetic to Iran's nuclear program. One administration
witness will testify that the conference will not solve all the
problems or answer all the tough questions. Now, that is an
understatement.
The NPT is a norm against nuclear nonproliferation.
Strengthen it if we can, but in trying, let us not sacrifice
critical actions for the sake of perceived goodwill as the
administration is doing with important Iran sanctions
legislation, and let us not pretend that this treaty is giving
us security. It is not.
Remember, an illusion of progress can be more dangerous
than obvious conference failure when the stakes are so high.
Let us pass the Iran sanctions bill. I mean a vigorous bill,
not a watered down bill, because 2015 and the capacity for an
Iranian leader to hit the United States if the urge to be a
martyr hits him will come soon enough. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Berman. The time of the gentleman has expired.
I am now pleased to introduce our two panels. Ambassador
Susan Burk plays a lead role in preparing for the NPT Review
Conference. She previously served as first deputy coordinator
for homeland security in the State Department's Office of the
Coordinator for Counterterrorism.
She has served as acting assistant secretary of state for
nonproliferation, chief of the International Nuclear Affairs
Division of ACDA, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,
and director of the Office of Regional Affairs and State. While
at ACDA, she was the chief of the Non-Proliferation Treaty
Extension Division, leading U.S. preparations for the 1995 NPT
Review and Extension Conference.
Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins currently serves as the State
Department's coordinator for threat reduction programs in the
Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation.
Previously she served as counsel to the 9-11 Commission, a
consultant to the 2000 National Commission on Terrorism and
general counsel to the U.S. Commission to Access the
Organization of the Federal Government to Combat Proliferation
of Weapons of Mass Destruction. A retired Naval Reserve
officer, she recently completed a year-long deployment to the
U.S. Central Command in CENTCOM.
I think I will wait and introduce the second panel when
they come forward. Ambassador Burk, your entire statement will
be part of the record. You are free to summarize it and make
the points you want. Why don't you go ahead and lead off?
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SUSAN F. BURK, SPECIAL
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PRESIDENT, FOR NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ambassador Burk. Well, thank you very much, Chairman
Berman, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen and members of the committee
for giving me the chance to be here today to talk about our
preparations for the NPT Review Conference, which will start in
less than 2 weeks, as someone pointed out.
Let me just offer some brief highlights or lowlights of my
remarks, and then I will look forward to your questions. You
mentioned the President's Prague speech, and I would just note
that at that time he called the basic bargain of the NPT, what
we call the three pillars, he called it sound.
Countries with nuclear weapons will move toward
disarmament, countries without nuclear weapons will not acquire
them, and all countries can access peaceful nuclear energy.
There are, as has been pointed out, nearly 190 parties to the
treaty, and that puts a premium on cooperation as we work with
others to achieve common goals.
The NPT and the global nonproliferation regime have been
under great stress, as we have heard already. This has been a
result of the growing availability of sensitive nuclear
technology, A.Q. Khan that we are all very concerned about, the
continued defiance by North Korea and Iran of efforts to bring
them into compliance with their international nonproliferation
obligations and the limitations that some states continue to
impose on the verification role of the International Atomic
Energy Agency safeguards program, the IAEA.
As a result, the United States is not approaching the
upcoming NPT Review Conference in any business as usual spirit.
President Obama has put a strengthened NPT at the center of
American nonproliferation diplomacy, and the United States has
taken a series of steps to help achieve that goal.
But I use the world help here very deliberately. The U.S.
cannot realize the NPT vision on its own. It will take all
parties working together, setting aside stale debates and
perspectives that have too often led to gridlock, if we are to
accomplish the balanced review of all three pillars of the
treaty that most parties are insisting that they want.
I have spent the last 10 months engaging scores of NPT
parties from all regions to gauge how best to do that, and
these consultations have revealed a broad range of views on the
treaty and on the review conference, but all the states that I
have consulted share the firm conviction that the NPT is
critical to the maintenance of regional and international peace
and security, and this certainly is the U.S. view. We are
encouraging these parties to approach the review conference as
a real opportunity to focus on common goals and renew the
collective commitment to the principles and basic bargain of
the treaty.
So what are the issues that we want the review conference
to address and the outcomes that we seek? The NPT is first and
foremost a treaty aimed at preventing the further spread of
nuclear weapons while ensuring that the peaceful benefits of
nuclear energy are made available to states fulfilling their
nonproliferation commitments.
But the treaty's negotiators understood that non-nuclear
weapon states would be more likely to foreswear nuclear weapons
permanently if the five states that possessed them at that time
pledged in good faith to seek to eliminate them, and this
understanding holds today.
We are making clear that we take our obligations under the
NPT seriously and we are fulfilling them. We are emphasizing
first that recent actions, including the signing of the New
START treaty, the release of the Nuclear Posture Review and our
commitment to starting FMCT negotiations and seeking
ratification of the CTBT, clearly demonstrate the U.S.
commitment to fulfilling its disarmament responsibilities under
Article VI of the NPT.
But, secondly, we are emphasizing that a robust and
reliable nonproliferation regime is a necessary condition for
progress on disarmament, and we are working to leverage
international support for our own efforts to gain broad support
for the treaty's nonproliferation goals.
And, finally, we are emphasizing that all parties, nuclear
weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states alike, have
responsibility for supporting the treaty's nonproliferation
goals, including by strengthening the IAEA and its safeguard
system and by dealing honestly and seriously with cases of
noncompliance.
The review conference is an opportunity to reaffirm the
IAEA's central role in NPT verification and the goal of
universal adherence to the additional safeguards protocol,
which we believe, together with comprehensive safeguard
agreements, should be considered an essential standard for
verification.
It is not enough to detect violations, however.
Noncompliance with nonproliferation obligations erodes
confidence in the treaty and in the global regime and must be
met with real consequences including, as necessary, actions by
the U.N. Security Council.
The U.S., together with a number of other countries, has
been considering how the treaty parties might address the issue
of abuse of the NPT's withdrawal provision. This is
specifically how to dissuade and respond to the possibility of
an NPT party withdrawing from the treaty while in violation of
its NPT obligations, an effort to evade its sins. We will work
with partners to address this issue fully at the review
conference.
Finally, we are looking forward to contributing to a
constructive discussion about international cooperation in the
peaceful uses of nuclear energy that is consistent with the
NPT's fundamental nonproliferation undertaking and with
international standards of safety and security. Taking steps to
strengthen the peaceful uses pillar is especially important
today in view of the renewed interest in civil nuclear power,
which has grown worldwide in response to concerns about climate
change and energy security.
Here too a strong and reliable nonproliferation regime is
essential for the fullest possible access to nuclear energy for
peaceful purposes. We know too well--I know too well--the
challenges of reaching agreement on a final report or other
document when so many countries are involved, when the agenda
is so broad and consensus, as has been pointed out, is the
order of the day.
We expect, however, that the large majority of NPT parties
will participate at this meeting in good faith and share our
interest in revalidating the treaty's indispensable
contribution to global security, but the United States is not
approaching the review conference as an end in itself. It is a
critical milestone in the broader international effort to
strengthen the regime, but it will not solve all the problems
or answer all the tough questions.
The hard work of maintaining and reinforcing the
international nonproliferation regime will continue for years
to come, and the discussions that take place in New York in 2
weeks and the ideas that are put forward there can contribute
valuable momentum to our efforts at the IAEA in Vienna, the
Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and the United Nations, and
that will remain a key U.S. objective for the review conference
Thank you again, Chairman Berman and members, and I look
forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Burk follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Berman. Thank you very much, Ambassador.
Ambassador Jenkins, we look forward to hearing from you. Your
entire statement will be part of the record as well.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BONNIE D. JENKINS, COORDINATOR,
THREAT REDUCTION PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ambassador Jenkins. Thank you, Chairman Berman and Ranking
Members deg. Ros-Lehtinen and esteemed members of the
committee, for the opportunity to report on the strides and the
efforts that the Department of State is making to reduce the
chances of an attack by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.
I would like to request that my prepared testimony be
included in the record of today's hearing, and I will present a
shorter version here in my oral statement.
Last spring, President Obama called for international
cooperation and pledged American leadership in the effort to
prevent nonstate actors from acquiring weapons of mass
destruction. As Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs, I am
pleased to share with you the underlying goals of the Nuclear
Security Summit, some results from the summit, including
commitments made by the participants, and thoughts for initial
steps following the summit to meet the President's vision to
secure all vulnerable nuclear material in 4 years.
At the largest gathering of world leaders ever convened in
Washington, 50 leaders representing various nations and
international bodies came together to recognize the following:
It is increasingly clear that the danger of nuclear terrorism
is one of the greatest threats to our collective security;
terrorist networks such as al-Qaeda have tried to acquire the
material for a nuclear weapon, and if they ever succeeded they
would surely use it; and were they to do so it would be a
catastrophe for the world, causing extraordinary loss of life
and striking a major blow to global peace and stability.
The consensus on these topics was the impetus for the joint
communique and work plan agreed upon at the summit. To present
such catastrophic consequences, the solution is to keep the
essential ingredients of nuclear bombs--plutonium and highly
enriched uranium--out of the hands of those with a level of
intent.
The communique commits leaders to principles of nuclear
security and if implemented would lead to efforts to improve
security and accounting of nuclear materials and strengthened
regulations. The communique also launches a summit work plan
issued as guidance for national and international actions that
carry out the pledges of the communique.
In addition to the communique work plan, several nations
made significant commitments, which will strengthen the global
effort to maintain nuclear security and nonproliferation. For
example, Ukraine agreed to get rid of all of its highly
enriched uranium within 2 years, and Canada has agreed to
return a large amount of spent highly enriched uranium fuel
from their medical isotope production reactor to the United
States. The United States and Russia reached an agreement on
plutonium disposal which commits both countries to eliminate
enough total plutonium for approximately 17,000 nuclear
weapons.
This summit was intended to lay the groundwork for
activities to improve security for vulnerable nuclear materials
by 2013. We anticipate and welcome working with as many nations
as possible on this critical effort, and this international
initiative will continue in the future. South Korea has already
pledged to hold the next security summit in 2012. The summit
shepherds will consult on the precise timing of follow on
events at their next meeting later this year.
Overall, the summit was a call to action for countries
around the world. It provided an unprecedented forum to raise
awareness of the threat of nuclear terrorism to the highest
levels of foreign government. It reinforced the importance of
existing nuclear security mechanisms and urged additional
participation in mechanisms that already exist.
The summit emphasized the need for the strongest possible
political commitments by each state to take responsibility for
the security of the nuclear materials under its control, to
continue to evaluate the threat environment and strengthen
security measures as changing conditions may require and to
exchange best practices and practical solutions for doing so.
The summit also stressed the principles that all states are
responsible for ensuring the best security of their own nuclear
materials, for seeking assistance to do so if necessary and
providing assistance if asked.
We must work urgently to reduce the risk of terrorist
criminal organizations or extremists getting their hands on
nuclear weapons or all the materials, expertise and technology
necessary to build them. We cannot afford to be divided in this
endeavor. By bringing together our allies and other states
around the globe at the summit and in other future forums, we
will ensure that we bring every resource to bear on meeting
this important challenge.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak today, and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Jenkins follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Berman. Thank you both very much, and I will now
yield myself 5 minutes to begin the questioning.
Ambassador Burk, you mentioned the Additional Protocol, and
you talked of making more serious consequences for breaking out
of the treaty. You did not describe what you thought the
consequences should be, but could you address those two issues
in the context of why this review conference matters?
It does not amend the treaty. What is our hope in terms of
success from this conference, and how does it execute itself or
how does what comes out of that conference get implemented in
terms of the real world? I mean, Iran, I believe, at one point
accepted the Additional Protocol and never ratified it and
doesn't allow it to be utilized.
What makes this conference a meaningful conference, and
where does the conduct of both North Korea and Iran stand in
the context of this conference? How is that going to be
addressed?
Ambassador Burk. Do I have 15 minutes?
Chairman Berman. 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
Ambassador Burk. Those are the $64,000 questions. Why does
it matter? I think it matters. You know, it is a review
conference. It happens every 5 years, and we keep reminding
people that there is no operational consequence. It is not
taking a decision, as it did in 1995, to extend the treaty.
But it matters I think this year because the regime, as I
said, is under such challenge and there are so many questions
about the viability of the treaty, whether it is overtaken by
events, has it outlived its usefulness.
I think our view is that it is more important than ever
because you need that fundamental rule of law as a platform in
order to move forward on a lot of these other activities. So it
matters because it comes at a time when the regime is under
siege. It comes at a time----
Chairman Berman. But why does what they do become the rule
of law, as opposed to the Young Democrats passing a resolution?
Ambassador Burk. Okay. Well, I am not the lawyer. I am just
saying the treaty itself has almost universally adhered to sets
of certain international legal standards. You have
international lawyers who can speak to that.
Chairman Berman. Okay.
Ambassador Burk. I think it is the barrier. So it matters
because it provides an opportunity for states collectively to
reaffirm their support for the treaty, which is an important
political signal.
It provides an opportunity to discuss steps that could be
taken in other fora, in the IAEA and elsewhere, to strengthen
implementation. It provides an opportunity to talk about the
importance of compliance and the damage that noncompliance
does. They can have that sort of discussion.
On success, I think what we are looking for is broad
affirmation of the treaty by most parties, if not all parties.
We are looking for a discussion that will identify steps that
could be taken, commitments that states are prepared to take.
That may not be a unanimous commitment, but if the vast
majority of states make it clear that they are prepared to
accept certain commitments, strengthen safeguards and so forth
that is important and we will take that and we will take it to
the IAEA.
And on North Korea and Iran, I think the issue there is
just to continue to draw attention to the very debilitating
effects of noncompliance on the regime and to encourage the
parties to see it for what it is and to make a strong
commitment to deal with noncompliance, and I think that is
where we have come up.
We have been talking to other partners about how do we deal
with the problem of a state that violates the treaty and then
announces it is withdrawing as a way to evade penalties. We
think that the parties could agree to take some steps in that
regard that would signal clearly that a state will remain
accountable for those violations, even if it chooses to
withdraw.
Chairman Berman. A number of people left government service
from the arms control nonproliferation bureaus on the shakeup
during the previous administration. Are you at a point now
where you feel adequately staffed to both do your review
conference obligations, and all the other charges you have, in
terms of nonproliferation?
Ambassador Burk. For the review conference we have gotten
ourselves staffed up, and I am feeling comfortable about that
now. I think it is a rebuilding process that will take some
time, but we are well on the way.
Chairman Berman. Okay. I am going to cut myself short by 7
seconds and recognize the ranking member for 5 minutes.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. A few
questions. Number one, very few people believe that a new U.N.
Security Council resolution will be strong enough to even deter
Iran, so regardless of whether or not there is a new resolution
what else is the administration planning to do next to apply
pressure on Iran?
Secondly, in his speech in Prague in April 2009, President
Obama said, ``We will support Iran's right to peaceful nuclear
energy with rigorous inspections.'' So on that, is the U.S.
position that Article IV of the NPT that Iran and other
countries claim give them an absolute right to all aspects of a
nuclear program actually conditioned on their agreeing to
rigorous inspections?
Thirdly, related to that, does that mean that the U.S.
believes that the exercise of any right under Article IV is
contingent upon the ratification and implementation of the
Additional Protocol by Iran and other countries? Thank you,
Ambassadors.
Ambassador Burk. On the issue of Iran sanctions, I am not
in the position to address that question. I would be happy to
take it back and provide an answer. I just don't know what more
we are doing. We are clearly pursuing a dual pressure track and
consulting with the P5-plus-1 on sanctions, but I don't have
insight into any of the specifics there, so if I could take
that back and respond, please?
On Article IV, I think we have made it very clear that Iran
has essentially forfeited its rights to technical assistance
and nuclear cooperation because it is in violation of its NPT
obligations, and there are a number of Security Council
resolutions that pertain, and it is not accepting rigorous
inspections.
As you mentioned, it has suspended or reverted back to an
earlier form of the Additional Protocol and so I think that
takes it off the table on that issue. Our view is that we do
not encourage or promote development of sensitive technologies.
As a matter of policy, I think from the beginning of the
nonproliferation era we haven't encouraged or promoted or
provided assistance in sensitive technologies.
Any such assistance that would be undertaken would have to
be undertaken under the strictest nonproliferation conditions,
and I think at this point we are working with many of our
partner and our nuclear supplier partners to encourage the
adoption of the Additional Protocol as the new standard of
verification and ultimately a condition of supply, but we are
not there yet.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Ambassador Jenkins? I don't know if you
wanted to add anything to that.
Ambassador Jenkins. Thank you. No. I probably would just
back what Ambassador Burk has said about taking it back and
getting some more information to you and getting a response as
fast as possible.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. That would be welcome. Thank you. And
then lastly, the Nuclear Posture Review's limitations on U.S.
deterrence policy undermines deg. the U.S. nuclear
umbrella that defends many of our allies from attacks.
Are you concerned that calling that protection into
question will persuade these countries to develop their own
nuclear arsenal to provide for their own defense?
Ambassador Burk. Congresswoman, my understanding is that we
consulted extensively and very closely with our allies and
partners throughout the development of the Nuclear Posture
Review.
I was not personally involved. I believe that it was made
clear in the statements when this was rolled out that our
extended deterrent guarantees continued to be intact and remain
in effect.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. And then since I still have some time,
the Russian Government is adamant that the recently signed
START agreement links reductions in strategic nuclear forces to
restrictions on strategic missile defense. The Obama
administration says this is not so.
Are the Russians lying? Why would they repeatedly say this
and the Obama administration to believe it to be true, our good
partners? Why haven't we insisted that they stop saying it if
it is not true, as the Obama administration believes it is not
true?
Ambassador Burk. I don't know the answer to that, but I
believe what the administration is saying about this issue.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Berman. The gentleman from California, Mr.
Sherman, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Sherman. One last sentence from my opening statement,
and that is that smart sanctions are dumb. The idea that we are
going to get Iran to abandon its nuclear program by adopting
sanctions that don't affect the Iranian economy, but somehow a
few of the leadership, is absurd. Ahmadinejad isn't going to
give up nuclear weapons just so he can visit Disney World.
Now, Ambassador Burk, you have a difficult job. You use all
your persuasive abilities to try to get countries to treat
these issues the way we would like them to, but sometimes
persuasion isn't enough. Have you been able to tell any country
that American aid to that country or trade with that country
will be affected even slightly by how they behave at the review
conference and on nonproliferation issues in general?
Ambassador Burk. Thank you. That is a great question. I
have to say that although we can invite who we want to the
review conference because we have been pretty successful in
gaining broad international membership, I have been pretty
selective in who I have talked to, and I would have to say that
I have found a tremendous amount of support for the U.S.
posture and U.S. proposals in my consultations.
Mr. Sherman. You have complimented me on my question, but
you are evading it. Have you been able to tell any country that
aid or trade is conditioned at least in some part on their
behavior at the review conference?
Ambassador Burk. I have not because I haven't had to.
Mr. Sherman. So every nation coming to the review
conference is going to agree with us on all the important
issues?
Ambassador Burk. No, not every nation, but I am only
talking about the nations that I have personally engaged with.
Mr. Sherman. Speak on behalf of the administration in
general. Has the administration secured the cooperation and
agreement of every nation to all of our policies? Obviously
not. Has anyone with the administration told those companies
that have not fully embraced our positions on important issues
that aid or trade could be affected?
Ambassador Burk. I am not personally aware that we have
done that. No.
Mr. Sherman. I think you are absolutely assured that we are
going to fail to achieve all of our important objectives at
this conference, and you have just identified the reason.
Now, let me see. The ranking member has brought up the
issue of whether the administration is trying to pressure
Israel to sign the NPT. I would just say that friends don't ask
friends to commit suicide and so I hope you are not doing so.
As long as there are countries in the world calling for the
destruction of a state, it is hard to ask that state not to
develop whatever it thinks it might need to do to protect
itself from total annihilation. Nobody is threatening the total
annihilation of China or Russia or Britain or France, and yet
they have nuclear weapons.
The final concern I have is do you in the foreign policy
establishment--I will ask this to Ms. Jenkins--have an
obligation to report to this country that our nonproliferation
efforts are failing and that we should develop a robust civil
defense program?
I believe that a firefighter does great damage if he or she
gives the illusion that they are going to put out the fire and
so the adjoining neighbors don't evacuate or take protective
action. Is that in effect what you are doing, giving us the
illusion that you may be able to prevent proliferation and
thereby lulling us into not having effective civil defense?
Ambassador Jenkins. Thank you for that question. I will
just speak just in terms of what I have been working on, which
is securing nuclear material.
I think that having the summit, which had 47 nations and
three international organizations, was in fact a call to the
community, to the United States and the world that there is a
problem that we need to address and that there is a problem
with 2,000 tons of highly nitrated plutonium that we have to
ensure is secure.
It is a call saying that there is something that has to be
fixed, and by having this summit we actually showed an effort,
an international effort and a multilateral effort, to try to do
something about that issue.
Mr. Sherman. I thank you for your answer, and it is long
past time that we start bargaining, offering concessions and/or
threatening other nations with loss of trade in order to
achieve our objectives here. I yield back.
Chairman Berman. Speaking of time, the gentleman's time has
expired and the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Smith, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ambassador Jenkins and
Ambassador Burk, as we all know weapons of mass destruction are
by definition unthinkable and unconscionable, but since
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the addition of several nuclear
states, including the PRC, Russia, Pakistan, India, Britain and
France, efforts to responsibly mitigate the threat, including a
myriad of treaties like the NPT, are among the strategies that
successive administrations have pursued. Provided we can assist
on adequate verification, it seems to me those treaties are
extremely useful.
In the 1980s I voted against, and I am sure Mr. Berman
remembers this very well, the U.S. binary weapons efforts that
were made. Ed Bethune offered the amendments, and I, like so
many others, unalterably opposed the creation, stockpiling and
use of biological weapons.
It is worth noting that the U.S. gave up its bioweapons
program in 1969, and the United States has some 31,000 tons of
chemical weapons and is currently destroying stocks of mustard
gas, Sarin DX and blister agents, and current policy is to
destroy all of it, 100 percent, by 2012.
As we all know, during the Cold War the Soviet war planners
knew that even a massive conventional attack against Western
Europe would likely provoke a nuclear response from the West,
especially with the use of tactical nukes. That policy, coupled
with Mutual Assured Destruction or MAD, the use of a triad of
delivery means--bombers, subs and ICBNs--frustrated Soviet
planners and therefore deterrents worked.
That said, I am concerned that the President may be
substantially weakening U.S. deterrents from biological and
chemical attack. Policy and words do matter. On January 12,
1950, Dean Acheson said that he did not include South Korea
within our defensive perimeter. Kim Il-Sung took note, and
historians have debated this thereafter, but many think that
that gave the green light for North Korea to invade South
Korea.
Now, in looking over the President's new policy is it true
that if we are attacked by biological or chemical weapons, but
those states happen to be in compliance with the NPT, U.S. will
not use nuclear weapons against that state?
I thought Charles Krauthammer did an excellent job in his
op ed in The Washington Post on the 9th of April, and it was
headlined ``Obama administration's Nuclear Doctrine Bizarre,
Insane.'' He points out--imagine this scenario--hundreds of
thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a
massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The President immediately
calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state
is in compliance with the NPT.
If it turns out that the attacker is up to date with its
latest IAEA inspections, well, it gets immunity from nuclear
retaliation. Our response is then restricted to bullets, bombs
and other conventional munitions. However, if the lawyers tell
the President that the attacking state is NPT noncompliant, we
are free to blow the bastards to nuclear kingdom come. This is
quite insane.
So my question would be, is that really the policy? Are we
talking about since we don't have a credible biological or
chemical capability, and again I absolutely renounce and I am
sure everybody on this panel wouldn't want that ever used. I
remember the talk about what the plume would actually look like
if chemical munitions were used and the huge amount of
suffering and death that would be visited upon people.
But if you take away all legs of our deterrence capability
and say that is off limits, is that really what the
administration is saying? Ambassador Burk or Ambassador
Jenkins?
Ambassador Burk. Yes. I think what Secretary Gates said
when I watched the roll out was that we were making this
assurance not to use nuclear weapons, but in the event of a
chemical or biological attack we reserve the right to respond
with overwhelming conventional force, and I believe----
Mr. Smith. Shock and awe? I mean, we had that in Iran.
Ambassador Burk. No. No. I am just repeating to you what
the senior Defense Department have said, what I heard them say
publicly. But there was also, my understanding, a provision
that they reserved the right to revisit this policy in the
event that the biological problem, if that developed in ways
that had not been foreseen.
Mr. Smith. But to a rogue state or to a group of
individuals, terrorist organizations who might be holed up in
Afghanistan or somewhere else, a nuance policy does not clearly
convey massive retaliation in my opinion, and I would
appreciate your opinion, not necessarily what senior staff says
or what Gates says. Doesn't that make us more susceptible to
that kind of attack, and does that take away the deterrence
capability or at least weaken it in any way?
Ambassador Burk. My opinion isn't----
Chairman Berman. One sentence.
Ambassador Burk [continuing]. Worth a whole lot compared to
Secretary Gates, but no. I would have to say I don't believe
so, and I do believe that he made a very clear statement about
what the U.S. would do, what its options were as a response in
that event, and I think he was quite clear.
Chairman Berman. The time of the gentleman has expired. The
gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Scott, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Scott. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I think in
response to Congressman Smith's point, which is a very good
point, and my hope is that that position will be clarified, but
I would think that if we recall the administration has that
caveat of revisiting that situation and with the clear
understanding that in no way would our policies ever put this
country at any risk.
I also think that in many respects as you are moving on
this issue and when you are in the position of leadership that
it is important that we lead from a point of nonproliferation,
from a position of where we want to be. But certainly it has
been clear time and time again with this administration that we
reserve the right to revisit this issue based upon the
circumstances that present themselves and that no way does the
Obama administration stand on any position other than to move
with all means to make sure that the United States of America
is protected.
Let me ask you this. In your knowledge, do either of you
know of anybody anywhere that does not think that Iran is after
nuclear weapons?
[No response.]
Mr. Scott. So then the answer to this question is that
everybody----
Chairman Berman. Are you saying yes or no?
Ambassador Burk. I don't know anybody who doesn't think
that that is something they aspire to.
Mr. Scott. Right. So that certainly includes Russia big
time. The issue is that Russia is the only declared nation that
has been the ultimate sponsor of Iran's nuclear program. This
is especially true in the 14 years that they have been working
with the Bushehr plant.
Wouldn't it be a good starting point to hold Russia to a
tight area of responsibility to make sure that the spent
nuclear fuel from that plant that could be used to move toward
the development of a weapon is disposed of?
The other point that I wanted to ask is given the fact that
we know this--that, as you said, you know of no one that does
not believe they are after a weapon--and we are saying the
world cannot be secured if they get it and runs directly
counter to our whole efforts of nonproliferation that this
ought to merit a move to dramatically move to boycott on an
international basis the importation of refined gasoline into
this country.
I don't care what kind of sanctions we put on for
everything else. That is the one issue in my estimation. That
is the last resort on a peaceful means of stopping them from
acquiring this nuclear weapon because if they do that is going
to throw the entire balance of that region and the world into a
very precarious position.
What is the hesitancy here of moving with that kind of
effort and sanction on that entity--they produce all this, but
they have to bring this refined gasoline in--and especially
given the internal dissent that is going on in Iran?
That would be a very significant way of capitalizing it
because I am convinced that the only way that we are going to
solve this problem is by causing an emergence of revolution as
maybe we say within the country of Iran to recapture its sanity
from these extremists that are controlling the country.
So I guess what I am trying to say is that since you say
everybody knows this is happening--3 seconds maybe?
Chairman Berman. Well, I think the time of the gentleman
has expired. I think I would just intervene here to point out
on the issue of Iran and Iran sanctions, I take it that is not
Ambassador Burk's portfolio. Undersecretary Burns, several
officials in the NFC, are sort of leading that particular
effort.
Ambassador Burk. That is correct, but I am happy to--we
will take back these comments and these questions as well. I am
sorry. We will make sure to pass this back to let the
appropriate people who are seized with this on a day to day
basis know of the concerns and the proposals, and I will
faithfully report that back.
Mr. Scott. I didn't know my time went so fast. I am sorry.
I just wanted to make the point.
Chairman Berman. The gentleman from California, Mr.
Rohrabacher, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This is
of course a very complex and very significant hearing today,
and I appreciate your leadership, Mr. Chairman, and I would
pledge to work together with you to make sure that we are all
doing the right thing.
Let me note that maintaining a large nuclear arsenal and
the delivery systems for those weapons, that is a very
expensive proposition and it consumes limited resources which
prevents us then from actually investing our limited resources
in other weapons that we need and we expect to be used.
We would hope that nuclear weapons would never be used, and
it costs a certain amount of money to maintain those weapons,
and if we spend that money that way we don't have the money for
the weapons that our troops depend on every day, so it behooves
all of us to take this very seriously as to what level of
nuclear weapons is sufficient for the security of the United
States.
In the past, large arsenals of nuclear weapons were totally
necessary because during the Cold War we depended on mutually
assured destruction, which means we needed a level of nuclear
weapons not only to strike at an enemy, but to have a
counterstrike after we had already absorbed a nuclear attack.
Well, the Cold War is over, the Soviet Union no longer
exists, and the need for a counterattack of that magnitude is
no longer necessary. Thus, we can reduce our nuclear arsenals
on both sides further down and still have security, and if we
don't we are wasting money that should go to other national
security interests.
So it will take a lot of work on our part to make sure we
are very serious about the issue, but what makes this issue not
serious and dangerous is this talk of nuclear disarmament. What
is that all about?
I mean, we can reduce the number of nuclear weapons
clearly, but for us to even hint that we are willing to some
day go to zero nuclear weapons and as if that is going to
impress leaders in North Korea and Iran and other rogue states
that this is the reason that we have to reaffirm that our goal
is total disarmament.
Chairman Berman. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Rohrabacher. As long as I get it off my time, sure.
Chairman Berman. Well, it won't be. It will be on your
time, so maybe you don't want to yield.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Berman. But it will just be 10 seconds.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Go for it.
Chairman Berman. Number one, in the second panel it will be
drawn out more clearly. There is a belief that the
nonproliferation and disarmament goals are connected, but,
secondly, there is this matter of this treaty that President
Nixon led us into that we signed where we committed to that as
the goal.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, I would suggest reaffirming that
that is a legitimate goal and is dangerous to our national
security. It does not convince rogue nations whatsoever that
they shouldn't develop their nuclear weapons. In fact, it
encourages them to do so.
Just as I would say the talk that we have heard recently
from the administration that Mr. Smith brought up that calls
into question our willingness to use a nuclear weapon and
leaves that very vague is actually dangerous to our national
security as well.
Now, if we are going to take care of the security interests
of the United States of America, we have to do it seriously. I
will have to say that this talk from the administration about
disarmament and this talk about being very vague about when we
would use nuclear weapons is damaging rather than helping our
national security.
One last note. Mr. Sherman was correct when he said that a
nuclear weapon could well be smuggled into another country.
Yes, that is true. That does not negate, however, missile
defense. At a time when we are lowering our arsenals, our
nuclear arsenals, missile defense becomes even more important
because countries like North Korea or Iran may well at a time
of crisis or a time of chaos put their nuclear weapon on a
missile and could actually use it in a time of crisis rather
than smuggling it into Israel or smuggling it into another
country.
Yes. We need to take care of the smuggling potential by
having a very aggressive intelligence community and a well
funded intelligence effort that will permit us to uncover those
kinds of plots, but, Mr. Chairman, we also need a missile
defense system that will protect us in time of crisis from
these type of monstrous rogue states that could launch a
missile toward Israel or toward the United States or any other
country. Thank you.
Chairman Berman. The gentlelady from California, Ms.
Woolsey, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like almost probably
every member of this committee, I strongly oppose a nuclear
Iran. Nuclear weapons I believe can only serve to destabilize
this already delicate balance of the Middle East. So knowing
that, we have to hold all nations in the region to
nonproliferation standards.
So my question is how does Israel's possession of nuclear
weapons affect the security of the region and the stability of
nonproliferation regime, and how does this affect our ability
to negotiate for a stronger NPT presence in the Middle East? I
mean, probably both of you I would like to have answer that.
Ambassador Burk. That is an important question. I think,
first of all, Israel has always said it won't be the first to
introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East, and I just have
to make that point.
But there has not been the concern in the Middle East about
this issue for decades until Iran's program came out into the
open, and you could argue that that is what has gotten the
countries in the region very, very anxious is Iran's
activities, which have now been discussed in great detail at
the IAEA.
And clearly there is a point we hear all the time about
universal adherence to the NPT and all parties need to be in
the treaty. There are three that have never joined--Israel,
India and Pakistan.
Clearly, universality in the Middle East has been severely
complicated by lack of compliance by the states who are in the
region, and I think the compliance issue now has made
universality a much more far distant goal I would say, and that
is something we continue to emphasize here.
Ambassador Jenkins. Thank you. Ambassador Burk really
pretty much talked to the issue of the NPT, which is her
expertise, but I guess in relation to the work that I do, which
is security of nuclear material, what I can say in that respect
is that, as you know, Israel did attend the Nuclear Security
Summit and they agreed with the other participants on the
intent to work domestically and work internationally to ensure
that nuclear material are secure.
They were at the summit, and they expressed a concern that
was expressed by the other countries about the global issue of
securing these nuclear weapons. I mean nuclear material. So in
terms of my area and working on security it is important, the
materials, and ensuring they do not get into the hands of
nonstate actors and terrorists. They were very much on board
with that, and that is what I can add about that issue.
Ms. Woolsey. Okay. Thank you. In 2008, Congress approved a
nuclear deal with India, and I was part of the Minority
opinion--we were in the Minority as Democrats at that time--and
opposed this deal because I thought it clearly violated the
intent, if not the letter of the law, of the NPT.
So I just question how can the United States stand up to
other nations demanding that they comply with the NPT after we
did an end run around it, and what can we do to gain back our
credibility?
Ambassador Jenkins. Well, on the matter of the United
States-India deal I wasn't involved in nonproliferation at the
time it was negotiated, but I do understand that it was
negotiated very, very carefully with a very close eye to
ensuring that it did not in any way violate U.S. obligations
under the NPT, so that is the fact as I understand it.
I think the way we explain this issue is that it was an
attempt to recognize a fact here, expand safeguards on a
program, on the India nuclear program, and in fact bring them
closer to the nonproliferation regime than they had been
before, and that was the goal and I think that is what we are
achieving through that arrangement.
Ms. Woolsey. But isn't it true that when you have to
explain what you have done you kind of undermine what you are
doing in the first place? I mean, explaining why we went end
run around something that we thought was important.
Ambassador Jenkins. That is how I explain it when I am
asked about it.
Ms. Woolsey. All right. Thank you very much.
Chairman Berman. The time of the gentlelady has expired.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Royce, is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Royce. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think just to
begin with the basic premise here, I think much of the
conversation--I think a lot of the administration's thinking--
is premised on the assumption that other countries are
positively impressed by our reducing our weaponry. That is
probably true in many cases. Canada probably is.
But the reality is that too many parts of the world have a
different set of premises, and in those parts of the world what
the administration sees as leadership and what a lot of people
applaud as their leadership is read as a sign of weakness.
I would like to ask Ambassador Jenkins a question. The
administration points to China's attendance at last week's
Nuclear Security Summit as a diplomatic coup. How so? Because
China ``announced cooperation on a Nuclear Security Center of
Excellence.'' Now, I wasn't sure what that was. I see if you
Google it that according to the Chinese party paper Hu Jintao
is considering this center in order to play a bigger role in
regional nuclear security.
Now, I don't think I have to remind the members here that
have been here while we have watched China proliferate, while
we watched China send the ring magnets to Pakistan, while we
watched China help Pakistan develop its nuclear arsenal, while
we watched China play interference for North Korea, something
that they could have shut down, but did not, but instead
decided to run interference.
I have been in meetings in Beijing where this has been
discussed ad nauseam. It is just phenomenal. I mean, the
members here don't have to be reminded that China has assisted
Iran's missile program, and continues to do so, by the way. So
is this Center of Excellence all we have to show for our
diplomacy with China?
Ambassador Jenkins. Thank you for your question. The Center
of Excellence idea is one that is still in development. It is
one that has been launched where DOE and DOD are working right
now with developing what the Center of Excellence will be doing
specifically, but it will be working in the area of nuclear
security. What is positive about it is it is going to be a
regional center and so it will work with countries in the
region and focusing on the importance of nuclear security.
What is positive again is not only that we are able to--it
took a lot of diplomacy to actually work with China to begin
this center. And what we are trying to do is have countries who
attended the summit be regional players and be regional leaders
on the issue of nuclear security so that after the summit and
years after even the second summit these countries can continue
to promote the goal of ensuring that nuclear material remains
secure and not vulnerable to nonstate actors.
So in a very real sense this is an important step in
ensuring not only that we have something that follows the
summit that can actually take it forward and be real after 1\1/
2\ days of meetings or 2 days of meetings, but that we have an
important part, like China, that is actually engaged in this
issue and that we stay engaged with China in the next few years
as we develop this center and for many years after that.
Mr. Royce. Well, we are engaged with China, but, as I said
in my opening statement, the only thing worse than not getting
cooperation from China and others is to think you are getting
it when you are not.
I am looking through your list of promises made at the
Nuclear Security Summit, and I don't see any mention of
countries contributing or bolstering their proliferation
security initiative contribution, and I was just going to ask.
Am I mistaken on that? Was anyone asked?
Was anybody asked to financially bolster their contribution
or to step up to the plate on the Proliferation Security
Initiative, for instance, or any of the programs, the hard
programs that we try to use to interdict weaponry and
proliferation?
Ambassador Jenkins. Thank you.
Mr. Royce. I am glad that Finland invited some
international bureaucrats from the IAEA to Helsinki. As I go
down the list I see they have done that, but again to the point
at hand. I am just looking for the success where somebody was
asked to step up to the plate, put money in to help on this. Go
ahead.
Ambassador Jenkins. Thank you.
Chairman Berman. I am sorry, but the time of the gentleman
has expired. You will have to keep looking. I am sorry. The
gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee, is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you for this hearing, and thank you
for the witnesses that are present. We are always grateful for
our chairman and our ranking member for being timely.
Across the street is a hearing that I am also engaged in in
Homeland Security that involves a report by former Senator
Graham and former Senator Talent--you may be aware of that--
that speaks about the risks in terms of nuclear utilization, so
I would like to just simply start by saying when you have a
meeting that was held last week that focuses on the crisis of
nuclear materials getting into hands of terrorists, I think
that is an important step.
I think it is an important step when you sign a new arms
treaty with Russia, who has for a long period of time obviously
through the Cold War with the Soviet Union, been our nemesis as
it relates to these issues.
But there is no doubt that we should be cognizant that
nuclear powers such as Russia, China and France have not moved
behind the issue of global disarmament. But who is to say that
we are not supposed to be the leader, and I would hope the
Senate will approve the new Strategic Arms Treaty with Russia
because I believe it is important, and I would like to be able
to assume that we made sufficient progress even in spite of
Iran and North Korea last week.
So let me pose questions regarding the meeting that I
believe is forthcoming, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is
credited with keeping the lid on the spread of nuclear weapons
for decades and what we perceive our goals are and are we going
to achieve our goals. I would hope as well, just for the
record, that we look at this in a bipartisan manner.
There is no one with common sense that does not view Iran,
for example, as a threat to the world, not just to the United
States, and I cannot imagine that the administration is not
doing everything it can to assess how we address the question
of Iran, but we must do that provocatively, but also with
diplomacy, so that in addition to what we do the United Nations
can also be part of it.
Ambassador Burk, if you would, tell me what progress you
think you made. I think you are the expert on last week. Okay.
Tell me what progress you expect to make on the conference next
week, because you are on the NPT. Yes.
Ambassador Burk. Next week?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Next week, yes. I got it. I know. So I
just decided to stay with Ambassador Burk.
Ambassador Burk. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. My time is rolling because I did want to
put comments on the record, but if you could quickly answer
that, please?
Ambassador Burk. All right. What progress we are going to
make next week?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes. Your goals.
Ambassador Burk. Well, our goals are to see if we can't get
a strong reaffirmation of support for the treaty by as many
parties as possible, the vast majority we would hope, and we
are looking to have a serious and constructive review of all
the issues on the disarmament piece and operation piece and the
peaceful use of----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Are you going to seek some consensus on
Iran and North Korea?
Ambassador Burk. I think what we are seeking is consensus
on the importance of compliance and the need to deal seriously
with noncompliance. I think the difficulty in getting consensus
on Iran per se is that this is a consensus body. The meeting
rule operates by consensus, and Iran is in the room.
If we can get Iran to agree to language like that we will
have consensus, but otherwise I think we will have to find some
other----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, then I will take the word consensus
away and just have an instruction and say I think we should be
enormously forceful, detailed and not hesitant in calling on
our other allies in the room to focus on a strong statement and
strong action.
I am going to move to Ambassador Jenkins on last week's,
which I think was an enormous step, as a member of the Homeland
Security Committee, in protecting loose materials. Can you just
give me your thought on what we got done last week?
Ambassador Jenkins. Very briefly. Thank you for the
question. Very briefly, I think one of the most important
things that we were able to achieve was to get an agreement by
the participants, all 47 nations and the three IOs,
international organizations, on the threat and the fact that
there is a threat of multiple nuclear materials being taken or
illicitly taken by nonstate actors.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Do you think any area is more vulnerable
than the next, such as the Africa and Pakistan border or
Israel, Palestine, on these potential transfers of loose
materials?
Ambassador Jenkins. I think the vulnerability areas differ
because of the type of situations.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Do you have any in mind that have been
made public?
Ambassador Jenkins. Well, I mean, I think if you look, for
example, at the African region the issues there are going to be
border issues. They are going to be coastlines and trying to
deal with export controls and making sure that the weapons are
not elicited through those kind of border areas.
If you look at other areas that don't have that, you are
more concerned about actually the facilities themselves.
Chairman Berman. The time of the gentlelady has expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Berman. The gentleman from Virginia. No. I am
sorry. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Burton, is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Burton. You know, unless we have an embargo that blocks
Iran completely and puts so much pressure on the regime things
aren't going to change. We have been talking about this for 5
or 6 years.
I have been in Congress 27 years. I am going to tell you.
We just talk and talk and talk and nothing happens, and they
just thumb their nose at us and keep going on. It is absolutely
insane for the United States to rule out any kind of a weapon
in the event we go to war. War is conducted to protect America
and to win. That is it.
You know, one of the things that is very interesting is
when the first Gulf War took place there was a great deal of
concern that Saddam Hussein was going to use biological or
chemical weapons because he did on the Kurds. He killed tens of
thousands of Kurds using chemical weapons.
I was on a television show and they asked me about tactical
enhanced nuclear weapons, and I said we shouldn't rule those
out. I was criticized about it, and about 2 weeks later
President Bush I said we are not ruling anything in or out.
They said does that include tactical nukes, and he said yes.
As a result, there was no chemical or biological weapons
used, and we won the war in a short period of time. Now, those
things have very little radioactive fallout so there wouldn't
have been a holocaust like you saw at Hiroshima or Nagasaki,
but nevertheless it let Saddam Hussein know there was a
terrible price to pay.
If you want to go to the major nuclear weapons, if we had
invaded Japan in World War II, and I don't know if you know
much about history. The estimate was we would have lost 500,000
Americans. Because we used the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki
we stopped the war and we saved 500,000 American lives. It was
a horrible thing to do, but war is hell anyhow.
For Secretary Gates, for whom I have a great deal of
respect, to say we are going to rule out nuclear weapons, that
is crazy. You don't know what Iran is going to do. They are
developing nuclear weapons right now and a delivery system.
What if they use them? You know you use whatever you have to.
And what if they don't use them? Let us just say they start
using biological weapons or some other enemy does. We have to
have the ability to retaliate in any way possible to protect
America.
The number one responsibility of the Congress of the United
States and the administration is to protect this country
against enemies, both domestic and foreign, and that means
doing whatever is necessary to protect this country. To allow
somebody to have immunity as far as nuclear weapons are
concerned really bothers me.
Now, I have a couple other things I would like to just say
here. Iran has been thumbing its nose at the rest of the world.
They are not stopping their nuclear program. All these meetings
aren't going to cut it. The only thing that is going to stop
them is to put so much pressure on them as far as energy is
concerned, not getting any gasoline or whatever it takes to
kill that economy and force the people to force them out of
office. That is the only thing that is going to work because
they are going to go ahead.
Their number one objective is to destroy the state of
Israel. I haven't heard that mentioned here at all today, but
we have BBnet and Yahoo coming into this country, and it is
virtually ignored by the President. I think that is terrible.
They are our strongest ally in the Middle East, and Iran is
going about its merry way developing nuclear capability and
their number one objective, stated objective, is to destroy
Israel. And so we need to be saying very clearly we are going
to support Israel in any way possible and we are going to do
everything we can to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Let me just say a couple of other things here. Iran is a
terrorist state. They are a terrorist state. The President has
indicated for peaceful purposes we would allow Iran to have
nuclear material. They don't need it. Iran has got plenty of
energy right there in oil, and since they are a terrorist state
we ought to do everything we can do to stop them from getting
any nuclear material for any purpose that might be able to be
converted into a nuclear weapon.
Now, the other thing I want to talk to you about real
quickly is I have talked to a lot of the Gulf States. I am the
senior Republican on the Middle East Subcommittee, and I have
talked to a lot of the people there and they say two things
will happen if there are nuclear weapons developed in Iran.
Number one, all the states around them will be concerned
and they will be intimidated and they will start moving toward
Iran because they don't want to be at odds with a nuclear power
in their neighborhood. Second, a lot of them are going to want
nuclear weapons.
These are things that we ought to be concerned about as
Members of Congress and we ought to be talking about them and
we ought to put the hammer to Iran in every way possible to
stop nuclear technology from evolving into nuclear weapons.
Chairman Berman. The time of the gentleman has expired. The
gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly?
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing. I thank our panelists. I would ask
unanimous consent that my full statement be entered into the
record.
Chairman Berman. Without objection.
Mr. Connolly. Let me just say I think the whole question of
nuclear proliferation and the proliferation of radiological
material getting into the hands of the wrong parties is perhaps
the single most troubling challenge we face in U.S. foreign
policy, and that is why I think both the summit the President
held and this hearing are terribly important as we explore the
best ways to protect our country and our allies.
Speaking of which, let me ask each of the Ambassadors. Why
did this summit not cover radiological sources, which some
European officials believe pose the largest terrorist threat?
Ambassador Jenkins. Thank you. Yes, that question came up
often during our discussions, and the majority of states
realized--we made it clear from the very beginning--that we
recognize and understand that radiological sources are an
important issue, a very important issue, but for the purposes
of the summit we felt it was necessary to really address what
President Obama has already said was the largest threat, which
is the nuclear materials getting into the hands of nonstate
actors and terrorists, which is plutonium and highly enriched
uranium.
So that was the focus of what we really wanted to have the
summit really address because that is a big task in itself is
trying to secure all the nuclear material. However, the
radiological is important. We mentioned it both in a
communique, and the work plan has issues that could be
addressed.
We also stated at our meetings prior to the summit with the
Sherpas that countries are more than capable of having summits
that address the radiological issue. This was addressing
nuclear material, but radiological sources are something that
can be another source, another potential for another summit, so
we left that open.
And also just one last thing. The U.S. Department of
Energy, for example, still does work on radiological, securing
those materials for----
Mr. Connolly. Right. Because when you look at source
points, there are so many more source points in terms of
radiological material. You are quite right. We have reason to
be concerned about fissionable material and stockpiles thereof,
spent or unspent, but radiological material in terms of the use
for a dirty bomb can keep you up at night in terms of
nightmares.
In the 2010 edition of Securing the Bomb, analyst Matthew
Bunn rates Pakistan and Russia as countries at the highest risk
of theft of nuclear materials. Would you agree, Ambassador Burk
or Ambassador Jenkins?
Ambassador Burk. I would like to turn that to Ambassador
Jenkins because I think that may have been----
Mr. Connolly. Ambassador Jenkins?
Ambassador Jenkins. I would actually like to refrain from
actually naming any particular countries as the most
vulnerable. I would just like to just focus on the fact that
this is a global problem, and we really want all countries to
really play a role in this.
I think that is what we were really trying to promote at
the summit. It is a global issue, and all countries need to
work on it together and we need to assist each other in
assuring that everyone has what they need, the resources or
whatever, in order to secure all of the nuclear material.
At the summit we refrained from and all during the process
we refrained from pointing fingers at any one country and
saying this country is more vulnerable than another because it
really is a global problem, and that is what we think the
attention should be focused on.
Mr. Connolly. A diplomatic answer if there ever was one.
Will there or should there be anything in the RevCon final
document on the issue of stopping the spread of enrichment and
reprocessing technology in facilities?
Ambassador Burk. I will take that one. I don't know whether
we are going to have a RevCon final document or not because
again it is consensus, but we think we will be prepared
certainly to discuss and we know other countries will discuss
as well the need to constrain the spread of enrichment and
reprocessing technologies, the sensitive technologies, and
assure that any pursuit of enrichment of technology--I mean, we
have a number of our allies that have enrichment and
reprocessing technologies--is only done under the strictest
safeguards conditions.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I am going to yield
back my time, but I do want to add my voice to praise the Obama
administration and President personally for showing leadership
on this very important issue and bringing together many in the
world community to make sure it gets addressed. I thank the
chairman.
Chairman Berman. The time is yielded back. The gentleman
from Texas, Mr. McCaul, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for being
late. I was at a Homeland Security Committee hearing on this
exact same topic.
Chairman Berman. Did you see Sheila?
Mr. McCaul. I did. I did. That is where she is right now,
but she may be on her way.
Thanks to the witnesses for being here. This is an issue
that has been of grave concern for a long time, certainly since
9/11. My concern has always been Pakistan, where terrorism
meets the nuclear weapons, and how that is being safeguarded
and what we are doing to safeguard their nuclear arsenal; Iran,
which according to most reports is maybe a year away from
having a nuclear weapon.
Time is running out, and I hope we have a sanctions Act
that passes, but I am concerned that the clock is going to run
out. As Prime Minister Netanyahu told us that once they have
the bomb they have it and you can't really take it back like
when Pakistan got it. So that is a real concern.
What I am also concerned about, though, is the nexus
between Iran and its alliance in our own hemisphere with Hugo
Chavez and Venezuela. So when we talk about proliferation or
the smuggling of nuclear materials, we are obviously concerned
not only over in that part of the world, but the connection it
could have to this part of the world. We have a border--I am
from the State of Texas--that is very porous, and we are very
concerned about that kind of material crossing into the United
States.
So if either one of you would like to comment on those
points and tell me what your plan is specifically to address
that, realizing I have thrown quite a bit out at you, but I
would like to get your response.
Ambassador Jenkins. Just very briefly because I am not as
familiar. I am getting more familiar now with all of the work
that DHS is doing domestically on that, but I do know that DHS,
and you just sat through the hearing, is very engaged in that
issue and trying to work on the issues of that kind, the
borders, porous borders and what can be brought into the porous
borders into the United States.
You make a very good point about the global nature of the
issue and being concerned about what can happen far away, but
even closer to us in Venezuela or wherever and so I just have
to reiterate what I have been saying this morning already about
the global nature of this and the fact that it really is a
global issue that all countries must be engaged in trying to
prevent because it really does have no borders.
Mr. McCaul. Ambassador Burk?
Ambassador Burk. Well, all I would say is that you have hit
on some really important issues and some big concerns, and I
think from my narrow focus on the NPT part of the effort
through me is to try again globally to get as many countries to
understand that these things are problems and do whatever they
can regionally, globally to contribute to steps that will
address these kinds of issues.
I think that is the idea. We have to all be on the same
page, and there has to be broad agreement on what the problems
are.
Mr. McCaul. And my understanding is that Iran is a
signatory?
Ambassador Burk. They are a party and they will be in New
York----
Mr. McCaul. Okay.
Ambassador Burk [continuing]. Yes, at the review
conference.
Mr. McCaul. Okay. That will be a very interesting
discussion. Tell me about your efforts with China and Russia to
get them on board with sanctions.
Ambassador Burk. I can't give you any specific details,
Congressman, because I am not personally involved in that. I
know that we are working with the P5-plus-1--I keep getting the
sixth party in; I am trying to get all these groups--and that
we are working very closely with Russia and China, and any
Security Council action would be contingent upon their support.
Mr. McCaul. I agree. We are going to hopefully pass this in
the Congress that applies to the United States, but the U.N. is
going to have to come forward with a sanctions bill that would
have teeth, and I am concerned to get Russia and China on
board.
It probably won't have that necessary enforcement, and
therefore we are going to be faced with a nuclear Iran, which
can be a very I think dangerous scenario. They are a signatory,
but under the President's policy he will not use nuclear force
if someone is a signatory to the NPT, but they also have to be
in compliance with that. Is that correct?
Ambassador Burk. No. It was very clearly stated that what
we call the negative security assurance was only granted to
countries who were in compliance.
Mr. McCaul. In compliance.
Ambassador Burk. And I think Secretary Gates said quite
explicitly again, as I watched him on the roll out, that the
countries who were not in compliance--Iran and North Korea--
this assurance would not apply to them.
Mr. McCaul. Right.
Ambassador Burk. So I think it was quite clear.
Mr. McCaul. I think it is good to make that very clear that
that policy would not affect what we do with Iran. With that, I
think my time has expired.
Chairman Berman. Your time is expired. I won't ask whether
he included Syria as a noncompliant party. I am not going to
ask that.
I want to thank both of you very much. We appreciate it. We
have a second panel that is going to follow on. Good luck next
week. Good luck with the follow on to last week.
Ambassador Jenkins. Thank you.
Chairman Berman. While the panels are coming up, Mr.
Rohrabacher, I just wanted to read one paragraph from what
George Shultz, Henry Kissinger and a few other guys wrote:
``Ronald Reagan called for the abolishment of all nuclear
weapons, which he considered to be''--all nuclear weapons is
his quote--``totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for
nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and
civilization.''
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Chairman, if I could, just one retort
to that is that would be the one thing I disagreed with
President Reagan on.
Mr. Burton. Would the gentleman yield real quickly while we
are having the other panel come up?
Chairman Berman. You didn't work for Reagan.
Mr. Burton. You know, if every person in the world, every
country, did away with nuclear weapons that would be one thing,
but you don't disarm yourself if there is any possibility that
you are going to be retaliated against and be attacked.
Chairman Berman. As our panelists are sitting down, I will
just say there is nothing I know in anything in that Nuclear
Posture Review or what President Obama said at Prague that
would indicate we have intention--any intention--of disarming
ourselves of nuclear weapons without knowing that all other
nuclear weapons have been disarmed and that a system is in
place to ensure that is true.
Mr. Burton. If the gentleman would yield one more time real
quickly? And that is this. Let us say a country has complied,
saying it will never use nuclear weapons and they have
disarmed, but they use chemical and biological weapons to a
large degree and blow up Boston and kill hundreds of thousands
of people. We don't retaliate with nuclear weapons?
Chairman Berman. That is why I was addressing Mr.
Rohrabacher and not you.
Mr. Connolly. Couldn't the gentleman have picked a city in
Indiana?
Chairman Berman. We are very pleased to have our next
panel, and I will now introduce them. David Albright is
president of the Institute for Science and International
Security in Washington, DC. In case you want to know, if you
remember that attack on the Syrian reactor and we saw these
vivid pictures in the paper before, after and then this plowed
field like it was going to the bread basket of the world? Those
were his pictures.
He regularly publishes and conducts scientific research, is
frequently mentioned in major print and broadcast outlets and
has written numerous assessments on secret nuclear weapons
programs throughout the world. His most recent book is Peddling
Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America's Enemies.
Kenneth Luongo is president of the Partnership for Global
Security. Mr. Luongo previously served as senior advisor to the
Secretary of Energy for Nonproliferation Policy, director of
the Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation at the U.S.
Department of Energy and as a staffer for the House Armed
Services Committee.
He also serves on the Steering Committee for the Fissile
Materials Working Group, a coalition of more than 40 leading
experts and NGOs in nuclear security and nonproliferation,
which held its own nuclear security summit last week. That was
not the one in Tehran. No. Okay.
Christopher Ford is the director of the Center for
Technology and Global Security and Senior Fellow at the Hudson
Institute. Mr. Ford served, until September 2008, as United
States special representative for nuclear nonproliferation and
prior to that as principal deputy assistant secretary of state
responsible for arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament
verification and compliance policy.
Prior to joining the Bush administration, Dr. Ford served
as minority counsel and then general counsel to the U.S. Select
Committee on Intelligence. He is also a lieutenant commander in
the U.S. Navy Reserve.
Mr. Albright, why don't you start off?
STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID ALBRIGHT, PRESIDENT, INSTITUTE FOR
SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
Mr. Albright. Mr. Chairman Berman and Ranking Member
Burton, thank you very much for holding this hearing. I think
we all agree just how important the Non-Proliferation Treaty
Review Conference can be and kind of a road or pathway to
strengthening the nonproliferation regime. I think it has been
clear from the discussion so far we recognize just how profound
the challenges are to the Non-Proliferation Treaty today.
Iran's and North Korea's nuclear programs, if not reversed,
could severely damage this treaty.
The treaty's effectiveness is also haunted by Syria's
secret construction of a nuclear reactor and its bombing by
Israel in September 2007. Likewise, the A.Q. Khan network's
proliferation to Iran, Libya and North Korea highlighted the
ease with which dangerous nuclear technology spreads largely
undetected. Currently Iranian and North Korean smuggling
networks actively seek, often illegally, nuclear dual use goods
for their nuclear programs. Their smuggling operations indicate
an intended or actual violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty
or U.N. Security Council resolutions.
In addition to these proliferation concerns, many non-
nuclear weapon states are frustrated by the lack of progress on
key nuclear disarmament steps that are intrinsic to the NPT. It
is the only treaty where the United States has committed itself
to achieving nuclear disarmament, but I think it is clear that
that is a long road, but nonetheless it remains a goal of that
treaty.
However, the commitment of the nuclear weapons states to
disarmament is not seen by the non-nuclear weapons states
despite President Obama's much lauded 2009 speech in Prague and
agreement on a New START treaty. Nonetheless, many countries
have a strong interest in the success of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty Review Conference, and that success, I think as
Ambassador Burk noted, is by no means certain and will
typically be judged whether there is a final document, after
essentially what will be 4 weeks of negotiation.
As she noted, consensus makes it a very difficult problem.
With almost 200 nations there, which include Iran, Cuba,
Venezuela, and well known members of the NAM or the Non-Aligned
Movement, any consensus is difficult to reach. However, it is
important to remember that this conference is just one step in
the process of strengthening the nonproliferation regime. If it
succeeds, and there is a document, many efforts will gain
momentum, and the treaty will be further legitimized.
If it doesn't succeed and there is no document, these same
efforts that are going to be discussed at the conference will
continue. The United States and other states will certainly
have to work harder, but in the end the ways to strengthen the
nonproliferation pillar of the treaty will be achieved through
a variety of unilateral, bilateral and multilateral
initiatives, many of which are quite far along.
Despite these difficulties, I think the United States is
right to prioritize the strengthening of the nonproliferation
pillar of the NPT. Clearly it is going to be a major challenge.
I would say disarmament is an easier challenge in the present
climate, but the real work has to concern the nonproliferation
pillar.
Ambassador Burk pointed out that making withdrawal from the
treaty more costly has to be a primary goal. North Korea
essentially withdrew from the treaty, not in compliance with
its obligations, and essentially got away with it. The treaty
has no mechanism to deal with that. We unfortunately expect
Iran will try the same thing.
IAEA safeguards need strengthening. Syria avoided signing
the Additional Protocol in order to build its secret reactor.
Libya, to protect its secret effort with the A.Q. Khan network,
did not sign the Additional Protocol. Iran withdrew from
implementing the Additional Protocol or acting as if it was in
force.
For too long we have not demanded that it be a condition of
any nuclear assistance or supply. I think it is clear it should
be a condition in the Nuclear Suppliers Group that the supply
of nuclear items require it. But it needs to be broader than
that. It is how countries cheat. They simply refuse to sign the
Additional Protocol or bring it into force and then are
relatively free to pursue secret programs.
Another item for the conference, which is even less
popular, is that the conference should explore agreements to
thwart illicit nuclear trade. It should recognize that the
danger posed by illicit nuclear trade is a fundamental threat
to the NPT because unfortunately that is the way countries are
getting nuclear weapons and that has been going on for several
decades. They are not building them on their own. They are
depending in essence on the profit motive and secret help from
irresponsible countries or people.
I mentioned the disarmament pillar of the treaty. Certainly
the United States is going to have to be creative in finding a
compromise at the conference on the obligations of the nuclear
weapons states to meet their Article VI commitments, but, as I
said, I think the prospects for achieving such a compromise
appear better today because of President Obama's activities.
I would also say that the United States should elevate the
importance of this treaty. As far as I have heard, President
Obama does not plan to visit or to address this conference. I
would say that I think the chances of improving success could
be elevated if he did attend. He can really work the crowd in a
sense to try to build a better consensus for the United States.
He should also be ready to call other leaders. Much of the
negotiations happen behind the scenes. There are a lot of land
mines in this conference, and a lot of that can be addressed by
calling on other leaders, many of whom he met at the Nuclear
Security Summit, to convince them of the need to make strong
commitments. So I think high level participation would reflect
also continued U.S. leadership of the nuclear disarmament and
nonproliferation agenda.
And I think we recognize--we, the American public--that the
Obama administration wants to stop nuclear proliferation,
reduce the risk posed by nuclear weapons in the hands of states
and terrorists and find ways to eventually eliminate all
nuclear weapons, which I would say is an important goal.
Nuclear weapons in essence, if used, kill in many cases what
are envisioned tens or hundreds of thousands of people,
innocent people, and therefore the use of nuclear weapons
should be avoided at all costs.
I think the NPT Review Conference, while not the most
important initiative of the Obama administration, is certainly
an important opportunity to further all these goals, but
succeeding in this conference will require more from the United
States. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Albright follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Berman. And Mr. Luongo?
Mr. Luongo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Berman. Your entire statement will be in the
record.
Mr. Luongo. Okay. Thanks very much.
STATEMENT OF MR. KENNETH N. LUONGO, PRESIDENT, PARTNERSHIP FOR
GLOBAL SECURITY
Mr. Luongo. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before
your committee today. I think this is a very important hearing.
It is extremely timely. I am going to focus on the Nuclear
Security Summit and its results and where do we go from here. I
thank the chairman very much for mentioning our Fissile
Materials Working Group summit last week. It was very
successful. We had over 200 international and domestic experts.
It was quite useful.
I consider the Nuclear Security Summit to be a significant
success. It certainly was an unprecedented event. It brought
together 47 nations and three international organizations, and
it focused high level attention on a very important subject
that hasn't had a lot of high level attention focused on it and
which requires high level attention to move it forward.
The communique in particular, as your previous witnesses
have underscored, highlighted the consensus on the threat of
nuclear terrorism, which had been a difficult issue to get a
lot of countries to focus on, and it also endorsed the
President's goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear materials
within 4 years, so that is now an international objective, not
just a domestic objective.
In addition, it underscored the importance of maintaining
effective security over all nuclear materials on whatever
territory it may reside, encouraged the conversion of reactors
that use highly enriched uranium fuel to use low enriched
uranium fuel and recognized the importance of a number of
different international conventions and agreements.
And finally, the communique emphasized the need for
international cooperation on this agenda and the importance of
capacity building and responding to requests for assistance in
order to make sure that these materials are adequately secured
wherever they may reside.
Accompanying the communique was a work plan. The work plan
focused on implementing some of the commitments that were
made--a number of the commitments that were made--inside of the
communique, including U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540,
emphasizing support for the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear
Terrorism, and the G-8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of
Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.
It underscored the need for robust independent nuclear
regulatory capabilities in all countries, the need to prevent
trafficking in nuclear materials and technology and the need
for improvement in nuclear detection and forensics. It further
highlighted the fundamental role of the nuclear industry in the
nuclear security agenda and the importance of sharing best
practices and the human dimension of nuclear security.
And in this regard I would just also note that the nuclear
industry held their own meeting the day after the nuclear
summit to discuss how the industry could contribute to the
nuclear security mission.
I think that perhaps the most far-reaching objectives of
the work plan focused on three items. One was the consolidation
of sites where nuclear materials are stored within the borders
of individual countries, the removal and disposal of nuclear
materials no longer needed for operational activities and the
conversion of HEU fuel reactors to LEU fuels. Of course, as
others in the hearing so far have mentioned, all of these
objectives were voluntary. There was no mandatory
implementation.
Then supplementing the activities of the work plan,
individual countries, 29 in all, made commitments to improve
nuclear security at home, and I think the major ones have been
well reported on--the Ukraine, Canada, Russia, India and
China--but there also were some pledges of funding--$6 million
by the United Kingdom and $300,000 by Belgium--for the IAEA's
Nuclear Security Fund, $100 million from Canada for security
cooperation with Russia, and then the President called for $10
billion more for the G-8 Global Partnership over the next 10
years.
In my opinion, there were three areas where the summit
could have done more. The first was on funding. I really had
hoped for more international funding for the nuclear security
mission. The IAEA was focused on as an institution that needs
to do more in this area, and their Nuclear Security Office is
really underfunded. What they get from the actual budget of the
IAEA is quite small and then it is supplemented with voluntary
contributions. So funding would have been one area.
The second is--I understand why the focus was on nuclear
materials--but radiological materials are prevalent, estimated
at hundred of thousands to millions around the globe, and I
know that a number of countries raised this question. I hope
that in the lead up to the 2012 summit in the Republic of Korea
that the radiological issue will get a lot more attention
because while the impact of its use is lower than the nuclear
weapon, its probability of being used is higher.
And finally, there were no new initiatives that were
announced at this summit, and I think part of the reason is
that there is international fatigue with the current set of
activities, but when combined, I find that the current set of
activities and programs and initiatives that we have in play
right now are inadequate to the task of effectively preventing
nuclear terrorism, and I have a number of suggestions for
improvement in my testimony.
I consider 2010 to be a particularly critical year for this
agenda, and I really would hope that both ends of Pennsylvania
Avenue will take this seriously. The nuclear summit, obviously
bolstered by the START treaty and also by the Nuclear Posture
Review, was one major opportunity. The NPT Review Conference is
the second.
The third is coming up in June, which is the meeting of the
G-8 and the G-20 in Canada, and I would hope that the G-20
nations would become more involved in these issues and that we
could get more contributors to the G-8 Global Partnership.
And then the final issue in 2010 that I consider to be
quite important is the budget that the President submitted for
this set of activities, which is roughly $3.1 billion and
represented an increase of about $320 million for this agenda.
I think if the Congress could act positively on that request it
would make itself a very strong partner in the process of
preventing nuclear terrorism.
So where do we go from here? I mean, obviously we will have
a lot of activity in the lead up to the next summit in 2012,
and I have outlined a number of different post-summit
activities and initiatives for the Congress and others to
consider, but one thing I would just like to underscore is I
think we have a lot of disconnected pieces of the puzzle that
need to be packaged together in some kind of a framework that
talks about what the danger is to mankind from nuclear
material, recognizes all the existing conventions and
agreements and Security Council resolutions and ad hoc
activities that are going on and then legitimizes all of that
in a package that countries can't pick and choose from.
In other words, this would be the set of activities which
is considered to be standard, a standardized checklist, if you
will, for countries to be serious about nuclear security. I
would add to that the inclusion of a minimum standard for
nuclear and radiological security. A lot of people have talked
about a "gold standard," but I think if we have a minimum
standard that everyone could understand that would be very
useful.
And then I would like to see it encourage public/private
partnerships. I think last week in addition to what the
President accomplished really did bring the nongovernmental
expert community and the industry into the discussion in a more
serious way and an integrated way. And finally, I think that
this kind of a framework agreement, while it needs to be
universal, could be initiated by a coalition of the committed
to begin with.
Chairman Berman. I think we are going to have to wind up.
Mr. Luongo. I am sorry. That is fine. I can end there.
Chairman Berman. Okay.
Mr. Luongo. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Luongo follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Berman. Dr. Ford?
STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER FORD, PH.D., DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR
TECHNOLOGY AND GLOBAL SECURITY, SENIOR FELLOW, HUDSON INSTITUTE
Mr. Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee. It is a pleasure to be here, and I thank you for the
opportunity. I would like to ask that my longer remarks be put
into the record if that is possible.
Chairman Berman. They will be included in their entirety.
Mr. Ford. Thank you, sir. I will keep my oral remarks as
short as I can.
The upcoming NPT Review Conference I think needs to be seen
against the backdrop of a general failure of nonproliferation
compliance enforcement. Without fully appreciating those
dynamics, it is hard to see where a lot of the initiatives that
one hears talked about in the RevCon come from.
Simply put, the international community's response to
present day challenges in Iran, places such as Iran and the
DPRK, hasn't been terribly impressive. No one seems to disagree
with that here today. Even where multilateral steps have been
taken, they have done too little and they have come to look to
have the desired impact on the cost/benefit calculations and
the strategic decision making of their intended targets.
Some in the disarmament movement have argued for years that
a critical reason for such problems in the NPT is that we have
not moved fast enough in getting rid of our nuclear weapons.
The way to turn around today's crises of nonproliferation and
noncompliance, it has been claimed, is for the U.S. to disarm
faster, and if we do so the rest of the world will heave a
great sigh of relief and finally rally to the flag of
nonproliferation in ways that they have been reluctant to do
hitherto.
I have been very skeptical of this credibility thesis, but
it is not, and I should emphasize this. It is not because I
think that nonproliferation and disarmament are entirely
unconnected. Indeed, in my view the coherence of the
disarmament enterprise really requires some kind of linkage to
nonproliferation insofar as I think that nuclear weapons
elimination by today's possessors would make no sense as a
policy choice if they could not be assured that the
international community could keep newcomers out of that line
of work.
With regard to the RevCon though, I think it is significant
to note that the Obama administration seems to believe that
there is a further linkage as well, a linkage in the other
direction between disarmament on the one hand and the
possibility of nonproliferation on the other. This is the
linkage of what I call the credibility thesis, and it presumes
a causal connection between movement on disarmament and
nonproliferation success in the diplomatic arena
One window into the credibility of this credibility thesis
as it were will I think come with this RevCon and we will be
able to see a little bit the degree to which this theory plays
out in practice. My suspicion is that Washington is going to
have a hard time capitalizing upon the very public disarmament
friendly position that the President has been taking.
Part of this is a problem of expectations. After a year of
playing to the disarmament grandstands with Prague and the
Nobel Prize and all that sort of thing, I think the intended
audience for some of this credibility thesis disarmament
positioning will be struck perhaps more powerfully by the
degree to which in the current Nuclear Posture Review, for
example, many, if not most, of the positions and things
articulated represent continuity rather than transformation of
U.S. policy and things that from the disarmament community's
perspective are entirely unwelcome, although I am certainly not
complaining about them.
With regard to the New START treaty, in addition to this in
terms of its raw numbers it is not, frankly, that much of a
change. Indeed, it may not be a change at all with regard to
deployed warheads. There are problems with it, in my view--
linkages to missile defense, restrictions upon global strike,
the failure to cover Russian rail mobile missiles, loss of
telemetry data.
I mean, you can go into the details of it, but in terms of
the raw numbers, which is all that the disarmament community
really looks at, this is not something that is terribly easy to
sell as a dramatic step forward as it has been billed.
I think for all of its sort of self-congratulatory media
splash, last week's Nuclear Security Summit also represents a
policy of general continuity. It builds only incrementally, if
at all, upon the nuclear security policies that were developed
by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
These are not complaints from my perspective. I think
generally that incremental, cautious progress is probably a
wiser idea in this very complicated world than assuming that we
can sort of remold reality to our whims and good intentions,
but this is not something that will necessarily be sellable
very easily amongst those whom it is the ambition of the
credibility thesis most to influence.
Let me say also I think the administration is basically
right that the modernization focused elements that are stressed
in the NPR with respect to our nuclear infrastructure, for
example, are indeed consistent with a sincere commitment to
disarmament.
In my view, during whatever period it is that the Obama
administration envisages occurring before some hypothetical
future zero, and that period is likely to be very long even by
their account, we will need to rely upon a smaller and ever
smaller number of nuclear weapons and rely very much and more
intensively upon any individual system.
The alternative to modernization in that context and over
that period is either de facto disarmament before it is wise or
sane to take that step or in fact to let our lack of
modernization become a break upon further progress, so even
from the perspective I think of the Obama administration's
supporters on the left, it ought to be on its substantive
merits quite sellable that this position is in fact consistent
with disarmament.
My suspicion, however, is that it will be very difficult to
make that sale. The optics are all wrong from the perspective
of the global disarmament community, and my suspicion is that
the credibility thesis, even if you accept its logical
premises, which I don't, will be very hard to implement in
practice.
That said, I think provided that the issue of the Middle
East or Iran doesn't in some fashion pop up to preclude
consensus that at next month's RevCon I think it is likely they
will produce some kind of consensus document. Many will take
that production alone as the index of success. That I think
would be a mistake. I don't think anybody here has any
illusions that we should be looking to something a little bit
more serious in order to judge whether the conference has been
a success.
I would encourage us of course to look at the underlying
issue of whether it is in fact contributing to stopping the
proliferation of nuclear weapons in the world. I was very
struck, Mr. Chairman, by your comment at the very beginning
describing a successful review conference as one that is united
in its condemnation of Iran's nuclear program.
That is a very substantive and very focused criterion for
success that goes just beyond the sort of anodyne diplomatic
production of a document that says nothing upon which everyone
agrees. I would encourage that kind of thinking in how we
approach evaluating whether or not the review conference has
indeed made progress.
I doubt that the Obama administration's gamble that our
disarmament movement will produce some kind of a
nonproliferation revolution in international diplomacy will get
many results. I would, however, be very happy to be proven
wrong.
It is very, very late for countries around the world to
start getting serious about nonproliferation compliance
enforcement, and since we seem to be tying ourself to that
credibility thesis train as a matter of U.S. policy right now,
I dearly hope that it gets some results. It would be tragic
were the entire thesis to end up being as hollow and empty as I
fear that it is. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ford follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Berman. Well, thank you all very much. I will
yield myself 5 minutes.
I can't help but comment on the irony that I have listened
to a number of my colleagues, on the other side, talk about the
massive and dramatic change in our nuclear posture and the
criticism attendant to that massive change and then to hear Dr.
Ford--a member of the previous administration, chosen by the
Minority--point out, ironically, that there is more continuity
than dramatic change in the context of the Nuclear Posture
Review and the agenda and the linkage between the disarmament
goal as part of achieving the nonproliferation, the strategy
basically.
I would be interested in getting Mr. Albright's sort of
response to some of your points, but is it your contention--I
mean, you talk about betting the store on the credibility
thesis. Are we really betting the store? Is it your contention
that the administration has bet the store on this strategy?
It has been involved in an arduous process that we don't
know how it will end, but at least has Russia and now China
negotiating the text of a Security Council Resolution, which we
hope will lead to a much more robust level of sanctions by an
EU and coalition of like minded countries that might create the
kind of economic pressure that at least it is plausible to
think could change behavior, although certainly not guaranteed.
In other words, a lot of this stuff wasn't just done to
have a nicer consensus statement at a Nuclear Review Conference
in the upcoming couple of weeks, so when you talk about the
Nuclear Posture Review being a continuation of--well, I guess
two questions I would have is what multilateral successes via-
a-vis Iran did the previous administration have?
And, secondly, based on your notion that this is pretty
much a continuation of policies of the Clinton and Bush
administration doesn't that at least imply that the sort of
dramatic criticisms of these policies are not accurate?
Mr. Ford. Well, if I might, sir? With respect to the NPR
itself, the things that I like about it are things that
represent continuity and indeed sort of hedging positions
against future challenges and so forth.
With regard to the credibility thesis and the belief that
we are betting the store and particular things, one of the
areas of the NPR that I think I like least is the new
declaratory policy, and we have heard some of that talked about
today.
Twice in the NPR document it is stressed that that
declaratory policy was adopted in order to--one of the two
reasons that is given for its adoption is in order to persuade
other countries to cooperate with us more on nonproliferation,
so that is sort of the crystallization of the credibility
thesis right there.
With respect to nonproliferation successes, in the past
obviously no one has----
Chairman Berman. Your point is that that is not going to
work?
Mr. Ford. I think that is unlikely to work. Yes, sir. With
regard to past nonproliferation successes, I am certainly not
here to tell you that the Bush administration solved the Iran
problem. No one in their right mind would suggest that.
The international community generally for many years has
struggled with this unsuccessfully, and one of the things I
think that has been most frustrating is the degree to which
after much criticism--I say this as a former Bush
administration person.
After much criticism for taking so-called unilateral
approaches with regard to Iraq, we regarded ourselves as doing
precisely what our critics had asked us to do when it came to
Iran, trying to pursue it through the IAEA and multilateral
fora, take it to the Security Council, which is the institution
designed to deal with this, and only to find our steps at every
point undercut by those who regarded that multilateralism as
somehow being offensive simply by virtue of the fact that it
was the U.S. that was trying it.
Chairman Berman. One could draw two very different
conclusions from that failure though.
Mr. Ford. My conclusion is that I wish we had tried harder
earlier, and if we had actually stuck to diplomatic
multilateral pressure in mid 2003 instead of letting European
enthusiasms to poke Uncle Sam's eye lead to a different
approach we might have had more results out of Tehran.
Chairman Berman. My time has expired. I may want to get
back to this if we have a chance to another round. Mr. Burton
is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Burton. You know, Mr. Chairman, I don't care who did
what in the past. It makes no difference to me. What bothers me
is that Iran and Korea continue down the path toward developing
nuclear weapons that endanger that entire region and ultimately
the United States of America. That is all I give a damn about.
I don't care who had what for dinner yesterday. It makes no
difference to me.
What I am concerned about is where we are today and where
we are going, and I think it is extremely important that we
adopt a policy, whether it is at these summits, and I am not as
optimistic about the summit that we had. I know they talked
about a lot of things and that is good, but as far as coming up
with some kind of a conclusion on how to deal with the
terrorist states that are developing nuclear weapons, I didn't
see anything that came out of it that was really tangible.
And so my goal is to have experts like the gentlemen who
are there at that table to come up with some solutions or
recommendations that we can implement that will put so much
pressure on Iran and North Korea that we will be able to stop
their development program and get them to start to comply with
nuclear nonproliferation.
I know that we tried during the Clinton administration. I
know the President worked very hard to work out some solutions,
but North Korea thumbed their nose. They took advantage of it
and thumbed their nose at us. I am not blaming Clinton for
that. He tried. I think the things that were tried in the Bush
administration and there has not been a success.
The thing I wish we would start focusing on is Iran has
money in banks. Iran has assets around the world. Iran imports
all kinds of gasoline because they can't produce it themselves.
They produce oil, but not the final product. What we ought to
do is we ought to come up with a plan to block them from
getting anything and any of our allies that aren't complying
with us, we ought to put pressure on them to work with us. We
have trade agreements. We have all kinds of agreements with
them that could be utilized to put additional pressure on them.
Every day that goes by that these countries continue to
develop nuclear weaponry the world comes a little closer to a
major conflagration. Ahmadinejad is telling all these people
that are blowing themselves up and he is sending weapons in to
Iraq and elsewhere and saying that they are going to go to
Valhalla or wherever it is and get 70 virgins if they blow
themselves up and people are doing that. Think what is going to
happen if they get a briefcase nuke and they come within six
blocks of this place. We will all be toast.
And so it is extremely important that we do whatever is
necessary quickly to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons,
particularly where terrorist states are involved, and I am
talking now about Iran and Korea and potential other states.
And so I really appreciate you gentlemen for being here,
and I am not asking any great questions, but this is what I
would like to see all of the intellectual experts, and you are
among them, to focus on. What can we do to really put the
hammer down--the hammer down--on these people?
I mean, having a nuclear summit and everybody talking about
long-term nonproliferation and things that we ought to be doing
collectively to solve the problem, that is great. That ain't
solving the problem. Iran is going down that road. They are
thumbing their nose at everybody else. They are not changing.
North Korea, they have been thumbing their nose and they
have been making agreements and then violating them. I don't
think you can trust these people. And so what you have to do
with a bully in a schoolyard or in a world theater is you have
to let them know that if they continue down the path their
bloody nose is going to be worse than what they are going to do
to somebody else, and I think that is what we have to get
across.
I know I am putting this in very strong laymen's terms. I
am not using the hyperbole that our intellectual community is
really used to, but I grew up in a tough area and I know one
thing; that bullies only understand one thing and that is the
fear of retribution and the fear of really getting clobbered,
and that is what we need to do.
We need to get down to the nitty-gritty and let Iran know
that they are going to suffer dramatically economically and
every other way if they don't stop this and that they know that
if they continue there will be retaliation, which will be
unthinkable. And that is why I say I don't think we should rule
out anything when we are talking about dealing with any of
these countries.
I know the President didn't rule out that with Iran, but I
think that we ought to keep everything on the table because we
don't know what is going to happen in the future. That is the
end of Burton's sermonette for the day.
Chairman Berman. Perfect timing. The gentleman from
California, Mr. Sherman?
Mr. Sherman. My sermon will be short. Here in Congress we
try to find partisan divides so we can yell yea for our team.
The fact is, for the past 10 years, three administrations, we
have seen continuity and failure with regard to North Korea and
Iran.
With North Korea we have stopped pretending that we are
trying to do anything, and with Iran we have shown the capacity
to generate big headlines about the modest possibility of
enacting tiny sanctions, so this is something that both parties
are united in, at least the administrations of both parties. I
am speaking now of proliferation and North Korea and Iran.
Obviously the Nuclear Security Summit was an important step
that the President deserves credit for.
Mr. Albright, China has apparently agreed to disregard the
guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and construct two new
reactors in Pakistan, even though the guidelines prohibit such
trade with a country without comprehensive safeguards on its
nuclear activities with the exception, specifically, of India.
I understand China claims that these new reactors were
grandfathered in the contracts for the first two it built
before it joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Is that even
factually accurate? Is it legally accurate that you can say
well, we are joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group, but we get to
violate it to the extent we have any preexisting contractual
relationship, and should this issue come up at the NPT RevCon?
Mr. Albright. I am sure China can make the argument about
grandfathering. It has been used many times. Russia has used
it. I don't think we have, but it is an unfortunate reality.
I would actually share your sentiment on China. Let me give
you an example. Iran and North Korea get many of the things
they need for their nuclear program--machine tools, materials,
all kinds of equipment--via China, and the reason is simple.
China has export control laws, but they don't enforce them.
I think one of the things that certainly is something that
should be done on Iran is convincing China to just enforce its
laws. We see over and over again cases of Iran and North Korea
buying vital things--centrifuge related equipment--in China. If
the United States was able to, and its allies, convince China
to stop that, live by its laws, it could seriously impede Iran
and North Korea's ability to expand their nuclear programs.
Mr. Sherman. We will do that right after they adhere to
their laws on intellectual property.
Mr. Albright. But it can be done.
Mr. Sherman. It can be done, except China has learned that
it has total access to U.S. markets, total domination of the
American political system and strong alliances with Wall Street
and Wal-Mart and so they don't have to do anything they don't
want to do, including enforce their own laws. Let me move on to
the next question.
Mr. Albright. Let me disagree with that.
Mr. Sherman. Let me move on to the next question.
Mr. Albright. All right.
Mr. Sherman. What are the prospects for agreement among the
NPT states that all members should sign and bring into force an
Additional Protocol for safeguards with the IAEA? Mr. Albright
and any of the other witnesses as well?
Mr. Albright. Yes. It is great disappointment. I mean, we
were up in New York visiting many delegations a couple weeks
ago, and it is not good. It is very disturbing because it is a
massive loophole in the system that allows countries to cheat.
I think the IAEA actually made a huge mistake by making the
Additional Protocol a voluntary endeavor, and I think we are
going to suffer consequences because of that. I am encouraged
that the United States and many other nations----
Mr. Sherman. Is there any feeling among any of those
delegations that they could lose any trade or aid with the
United States if they take a position that is an anathema to
the security of people in the San Fernando Valley?
Mr. Albright. I would hope that as the conference goes on
that threats will be made. I mean, it is not quite the time.
Mr. Sherman. But so far no. Let me move on to the second
witness.
Mr. Luongo. I am sorry?
Mr. Sherman. Can you address the question, Mr. Luongo?
Mr. Luongo. I am not an expert on the NPT Review
Conference.
Mr. Sherman. Okay.
Mr. Luongo. I would pass.
Mr. Sherman. Mr. Ford?
Mr. Ford. I think it is very distressing that no further
countries have accepted the AP. Indeed, there are countries
that have yet to accept even basic safeguards agreements, which
is also depressing and indeed required by Article III. There is
a very, very long way to go on all these points, and I am aware
of no threats at all, sir.
Mr. Sherman. It is time for civil defense. I yield back.
Mr. Albright. Can I? No?
Chairman Berman. We will get back to you. Mr. Rohrabacher?
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I
would certainly like to identify myself with the remarks of Mr.
Sherman, who always astonishes me with his very realistic
approach to some of these things, and let me just note
especially about China. Just a few comments on some of the
testimony we heard today.
A reduction in raw numbers in terms of the raw numbers of
nuclear weapons is a good deal. I mean, actually if it saves us
money to have raw numbers at a lower level and permits us to
use that money for perhaps some other things that are important
to our national security then the reduction of raw numbers is a
good thing even if it is not a balanced agreement that leads to
that reduction of raw numbers, meaning that we have given up
more than someone else, as long as what remains among those raw
numbers is an adequate force to ensure our national security,
and that is what it is all about.
In terms of continuity, as was pointed out by our chairman
and by Mr. Ford, again I agree with Mr. Sherman that continuity
doesn't mean a damn thing if it is the continuity of policy
that has led us to the mess that we are in right now. And the
challenges especially in Korea and in Iran show that a
continuity of that policy is a mistake, is wrong, and we should
have the courage to face that and try to come at these things
with a different approach.
But to that continuity it appears to me, Mr. Chairman, yes,
there is a continuity of policy of this administration, but now
we have added idealistic rhetoric about disarmament,
reaffirming again some things and stating this, which I believe
is dangerous because it gives people, evil people, the idea
that oh, yes, these guys are idealistic enough to disarm.
We have also added ambiguity. This administration has added
ambiguity about the use of nuclear weapons, which again is
dangerous. Idealism is fine, but idealism if it is expressed by
people in power could very well encourage evil realists, and
there are evil realistics in this world.
The evil realists are the ones who murder their own people
to stay in power. The evil realists of this world could care
less about agreements that they have or treaties that they sign
because they are willing to murder their own people to stay in
power. Who cares whether they are lying or not. They certainly
don't.
Chairman Berman. Would you yield for 1 second on that
point?
Mr. Rohrabacher. I certainly will, sir.
Chairman Berman. Thank you. I thought the criticism of the
Nuclear Posture Review is that it went away from ambiguity,
that our previous posture was what we would do in response to
different kinds of attack was not clear. We essentially
reserved many different options and never indicated our
thinking about what we might do.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Chairman, the ambiguity I am talking
about of course is the expressions that we have heard from the
administration officials recently about whether or not we would
use nuclear weapons.
Chairman Berman. But they have gotten clearer. It may not
be right, but it is clearer.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I think from what we have heard as an
answer today indicates that it is not clearer and that there is
ambiguity that has been added.
What we are really talking about, by the way, when we talk
about nuclear weapons and whether or not the goal should be
elimination of nuclear weapons, what we are really talking
about is mass killing. It is not a nuclear weapon in and of
itself is an evil, an immoral weapon system any more than a
machine gun. We are talking about mass killing and we need to
stop the potential of mass killing of Americans in terms of
nuclear weapons.
We need a missile defense system that can deal with a
threat from an evil person who has power in another country in
order to conduct mass killings. We also need a robust
intelligence system. Both of those are prerequisites to dealing
with this threat.
One last note, and that is China. I would suggest that Mr.
Sherman is exactly correct and that we have an establishment, a
financial and economic establishment, in this country that is
making a profit from a relationship with China and it has
prevented us from dealing with those policies that China is
following that are harmful to our national security. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Berman. The time of the gentleman has expired. The
gentlelady from California is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Woolsey. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to
have a little different twist on all of this actually talking
about unless we have more the United States will be at risk. We
will be at risk if we don't build up and if we let people know
that we are diminishing our nuclear arms, et cetera, et cetera.
I think the world is at risk. I think humanity is at risk
unless we find a way to do away with all nuclear weapons
period. I believe it with all my heart and soul. It may not
be--well, it won't be--in our lifetime, but it will be in
somebody's, and that will be the end of it.
So for several Congresses now I have introduced resolutions
to reform our international security policies. One is H. Res.
363, which is a resolution calling for the adoption of a smart
security platform for the 21st century, and the other is H.
Res. 333, a resolution recognizing nonproliferation options for
nuclear understanding to keep everyone safe. No nukes it is
called, so obviously you know what that is about.
These resolutions seek to promote a more effective national
strategy focused on nonproliferation, conflict prevention,
international diplomacy and multilateralism over military and
nuclear threat because the way we have been doing it ain't
working. It is not going to work.
Every day it becomes more dangerous, not less dangerous,
and until we get on the way to think about dealing with
humanity in a smarter way I just--I mean, we can sit here and
work on our little years that we will be on this earth, but I
will tell you we are not doing anything enough to take care of
the future of all of humanity.
So my question would be to you will the upcoming conference
and will the treaty ratifications fit into a smarter security
platform? Gulp.
Mr. Albright. No. I think again the Non-Proliferation
Treaty Review Conference from an outsider's perspective----
Ms. Woolsey. Yes.
Mr. Albright. I mean, we will be observers there. I have
gone or my organization people have gone since 1985. You are
trying to build support. I mean, for example, for us the
Additional Protocol is critical and what we would like to see
is more support among nations that that is the international
norm.
The next step is to encourage more countries like
Australia. They just said look, you want our uranium? You
better have an Additional Protocol or you don't get it. So in a
sense unilateral initiatives.
The United States has taken a bilateral initiative that we
are going to have nuclear cooperation with an NPT party that is
a nonweapons state. They have to have an Additional Protocol in
place. With UAE we insisted no reprocessing or enrichment.
Multilaterally, we have to push much more strongly in the IAEA
that it is a condition or it is a norm to have the Additional
Protocol, not just some favor----
Ms. Woolsey. Right.
Mr. Albright [continuing]. That you are doing the
international community. I could go into other issues where you
can pick up the strain. It happens before the conference. Kind
of a lot of these things converge in the conference and it is a
good opportunity to build support for these things and then you
go out into the other places and try to implement them.
Ms. Woolsey. Mr. Luongo?
Mr. Luongo. Thank you. I would say I think we are building
a smarter security platform. I mean, this spring we have dealt
with the issue of nuclear weapons in the United States and
Russia in the START treaty, which is in part a holdover from
the Cold War and in part will help us I hope with the NPT
Review Conference.
We have then dealt with this very difficult issue of
keeping nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists. I
don't think we have dealt with it completely adequately, but we
have really raised the profile of that issue around the world,
and I think that that is really important because that is a
21st century threat.
And then finally the NPT Review Conference I think is going
to be, as everyone has said, a very, very difficult lift, but
that is really about states getting nuclear weapons. I am less
worried about states getting and using nuclear weapons than I
am about terrorists getting and using nuclear material.
Ms. Woolsey. Doctor?
Mr. Ford. If I might add also, with respect to the utility
of the review conference sometimes negative information is good
to have as well. It is fundamentally about building support in
a political sense, but it is also sometimes very nice to know
when there isn't support nonetheless.
I mean, if we come together after all of this preparation
to make a big pitch that everyone should now cooperate because
we make a big show of acting like we are disarming faster and
they still don't cooperate, that may actually give us some very
useful information about where the shared values really aren't
and perhaps lead us to think a little bit more broad mindedly
about how to deal with building a truly smart security platform
in light of that in the future too.
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you.
Chairman Berman. I am going to recognize myself for one
more round if you guys aren't so hungry that you can't stay
here anymore.
No one talks about amending the NPT. You are talking about
strengthening the IAEA hopefully based on something in the
conference review file document if that is possible, but in any
event is the IAEA doing something that will require countries
to accept the Additional Protocol. What is the IAEA's power to
do that and how would they enforce a desire to do that?
Mr. Albright. The IAEA would act strictly at the level of
the Secretariat, the Director General. It would just be saying
that without it I can't do much. I mean, you ask me to inspect.
Without that in place I can't do anything.
Chairman Berman. All right.
Mr. Albright. So you need those kinds of statements and
recognitions at the IAEA and I think with Mohammed ElBaradei
sort of gave up. I mean, he was moving toward that because how
many times do you have to get burned before you see the
inevitable conclusion? We are hoping that with the new DG that
there will be more support for that.
Chairman Berman. All right. So the Secretariat and the new
Director General says that. And then what happens?
Mr. Albright. Well, first of all you would like it at the
Nuclear Suppliers Group. One thing that happened in the 1990
conference was Foreign Minister Genscher came from Germany,
representing one of the last holdouts said look, if we are
going to be supplying nuclear items countries have to have full
scope or comprehensive safeguards. They can't just pick and
choose and get the safeguards on what they get and ignore
safeguards on the rest.
And so his statement at the NPT was a recognition that the
time had come to implement that and then it was implemented at
the Nuclear Suppliers Group. So, the NPT can serve as a way to
solidify consensus and then stimulate action. And certainly as
it has been pointed out, it has no real power by itself.
On the Additional Protocol at the IAEA, I don't know the
legal mechanisms they could use. They are probably limited, but
they can start making it tougher, for example, for countries to
get technical assistance. They can start raising questions much
more aggressively about where they are lacking the ability such
as in Syria.
Syria refuses to cooperate with the IAEA. They are not held
in noncompliance. I personally think the IAEA should be much
more aggressive with Syria and perhaps threaten them with
noncompliance.
Chairman Berman. And I guess the Bush administration got
the IAEA to go to the Security Council and make referrals to
the Security Council. What we got from the Security Council was
pretty minimal, but there was a process there which----
Mr. Albright. For both Iran and North Korea.
Chairman Berman. Right.
Mr. Ford. If I might add, sir? It is also worth pointing
out I think that there are ways to make progress that don't
require necessarily going through--on some issues that don't
require going through all the procedural formal hoops too.
I mean, all of what David said I think is quite right, but
many members this morning mentioned the issue of Article IV and
how the peaceful uses component of the NPT has sort of been
weirdly twisted around in recent years to become a weapon
against the nonproliferation core of that same treaty.
One can make progress on those issues to a degree without
going through the difficult and perhaps impossible process of
actually amending the treaty simply by creating a counter
narrative, and so far I think to our shame the United States
Government has not created a counter narrative on Article IV.
There are things to be said to attack the Iranian inspired
interpretation.
Chairman Berman. The conditionality of the right to have
nuclear energy.
Mr. Ford. Right. The fact that this does not entail a
right. Everyone in the world can have a full fuel cycle if they
wish to. That kind of sharing of benefits needs to be
understood through the prism of proliferation good sense.
Chairman Berman. But the Nuclear Suppliers Group could do
that in a nanosecond, if they wanted to.
Mr. Ford. The Iranians have made the argument that it is
somehow a violation of Article IV for there even to be nuclear
export controls and yet the developed countries who one would
think would have a little more good sense on such matters have
been very much afraid of taking up public positions to
contradict the narrative that there is an inalienable right to
any kind of nuclear technology one wishes as long as it is used
for peaceful purposes.
Chairman Berman. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Ford. We don't have to concede that.
Mr. Albright. No. It is a big problem. In fact, one of the
reasons we started a project a couple years ago which led to
this book, Peddling Peril, which thank you for mentioning, was
that we really do need to think about this differently.
Iran has gotten to the point internationally, particularly
in the developing world, where it justifies nuclear smuggling,
breaking our laws on Article IV. It is just we denied them the
right. Therefore, they have the right to steal from us.
So I think the narrative does have to be changed. I think
there are two parts to it. One is that we have to recognize
that these countries don't build nuclear weapons on their own.
They are dependent on us in a sense--our suppliers, our
companies--to pull this off. And the other is that it is
illegal. It is a horrible action. It is very dangerous and only
worsens our security and the international security for all of
us.
I think that we have to in that sense really change the
narrative and put it out as in a sense illegal activities that
violate Article I and Article II of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty, or at least show that they intend to violate them.
Chairman Berman. Mr. Burton?
Mr. Burton. Yes. I just have a couple of questions. If we
pass a very, very strong Iran sanctions bill that has teeth in
it that says that there are going to be penalties for people
doing business with Iran because of their nuclear program do
you think it is possible--I mean, in the final analysis do you
think it is possible--for us to pass legislation here in the
Congress that will be effective enough to choke off the
materials that they need to develop a nuclear weapons program,
or does this have to be international in scope?
Mr. Albright. It has to be international. They look for
gaps.
Mr. Burton. Okay. So if it has to be international this is
an opinion I am asking for. Do you think it is possible that we
can put enough teeth in there to put pressure on our allies who
do business with Iran to choke off the materials that they
need?
Mr. Albright. I think the Europeans are helping quite a
bit. I mean, there was a recent case of----
Mr. Burton. I know, but that is not the answer. The answer
I am looking for is----
Mr. Albright. Can we do it?
Mr. Burton [continuing]. Do you think it is possible to put
enough pressure on them to choke----
Mr. Albright. Yes. Yes. No. But it has to include countries
like China too. It can't just be European allies. But, yes, I
think it is----
Mr. Burton. How would you do that with China?
Mr. Albright. Well, one is no one has even asked them, as
far as I can tell. I mean, this isn't sanctions. This is
enforcing the existing laws on nuclear items and nuclear dual
use items. There has not been much visible----
Mr. Burton. Well, China in the past----
Mr. Albright [continuing]. Requests to them by--I would
even say by the United States of making it a priority.
Mr. Burton. China in the past has not been----
Mr. Albright. I guess you are disagreeing, but I----
Mr. Burton. No. I am saying China in the past has not
always been ready to acquiesce and work with us on issues of
this magnitude, North Korea and so forth, so what can we do or
what do you think we could do to entice China to change its
policy so that they wouldn't be doing business with those
countries?
Mr. Albright. Well, I think one is I would say make it a
public issue with them and make it an issue that you raise
every time you meet them. The other is show how they are
failing.
We are engaged in efforts with companies to say look, here
is Iran trying to get things. You should stop your own company
that is involved in that.
Mr. Burton. In other words, talk to American companies who
are doing business with China and try and do it that way?
Mr. Albright. Well, making sure that American companies
understand they should be hyper suspicious about some of the
orders they are getting in China and to make sure that they
follow through with due diligence so that it doesn't end up
where they may see it as a domestic sale that actually it is
ending up in North Korea or in Iran.
Mr. Burton. Well, do you know what I would like to have? If
the chairman agrees, I would like to have something in writing
from you on things that you think we can do to put pressure on
these----
Mr. Albright. Sure.
Mr. Burton [continuing]. Because we are going to be going--
--
Mr. Albright. I would like the opportunity.
Mr. Burton [continuing]. To conference here pretty quick on
this Iran sanctions bill.
Chairman Berman. Can I just----
Mr. Burton. Sure. I would yield to my colleague.
Mr. Ford. Might I add a cautionary note too on this?
Chairman Berman. There are two separate issues that we
might be conflated here. One is a sanctions regime that is
designed to put such a squeeze on Iran that it changes its
mind.
The second is what you have now referred to several times,
which is to this day Iran is getting centrifuge technology and
other things from other countries, which sound to me like it is
illegal in terms of----
Mr. Albright. It is illegal even under Chinese law in many
cases.
Chairman Berman. Right.
Mr. Ford. In that regard, sir----
Chairman Berman. Because that latter part, I have to tell
you, I would like to hear more about that because I have
assumed that notwithstanding the horrible record China has had
on proliferation recently that has not been the issue with
China or Russia recently, that whatever they were giving,
whoever they were training, whatever in terms of their
institutes with technology and know-how that that area--you are
telling me that that is not so?
Mr. Albright. Well, it is not a conscious government policy
of China----
Mr. Ford. That is my precautionary note.
Mr. Albright [continuing]. To provide items. It is that
Iran and North Korea find it very easy to go to China and
acquire the items they need, and it could be from a European or
U.S. supplier who has a subsidiary there, and the Chinese
Government is not enforcing its laws.
Chairman Berman. Well, and A.Q. Khan talked about all kinds
of European companies that were----
Mr. Albright. Well, other countries have faced the same
problem.
Chairman Berman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ford. I don't think it is a completely foregone
conclusion that these things are happening entirely without the
knowledge or at least tacit consent of the governments in
question. I don't know the answer, but there is a narrative
that says it is just a sort of an oops situation with respect
to Chinese enforcement. That may be true.
I was always struck, though, when I had some perspective,
which I don't today, into the intelligence information on this
sort of thing and who was actually making these transfers why
one didn't see oops moments with regard to proliferation
transactions to countries that China somehow considered to be a
potential or actual strategic rival.
You saw these things with Pakistan and Iran. You didn't see
them with India, for example, or American companies, for that
matter, getting sensitive goods from the Chinese.
Chairman Berman. Because these are patriotic Chinese rogue
companies?
Mr. Ford. I don't know the answer, but I always worried
that there was an element in this, and I think we ignore the
possibility at our peril that China and Russia for that matter
may somewhere in the back of their mind think it is kind of
cool to mess with U.S. global strategy by in a sense at least
turning a blind eye, if not actually facilitating the
development of nuclear or near nuclear capabilities by
countries that are perceived generally as being a problem for
the United States in terms of its global strategy.
Mr. Albright. Yes. I think that is always worth keeping in
mind, but I think China several years ago was willing to put
the pressure on the Chinese suppliers or trading companies to
stop sales to North Korea and they did it to the point where
North Korea even in a bilateral, according to a very senior
Chinese official I talked to, complained that you were really
cutting things off.
Mr. Ford. It is a policy rheostat of theirs, and the trick
is to get them to turn it down, but it is not an entirely
autonomous----
Mr. Albright. Yes. Well, let me give an example. Germany.
Germany in the 1980s was a major supplier for proliferant
states, and their government certainly knew it was happening.
They didn't particularly have an interest in Iraq having
nuclear weapons or Libya having chemical weapons, but they knew
it was taking place and they wouldn't stop it.
I would say that to first order right now we are dealing
with China in that way. I think there is some interest in China
that I would agree with Dr. Ford would like to see this, but I
don't think it is Chinese Government policy at the highest
levels to do this, and I think it is time that China be held
accountable for this and press to stop it.
If then they won't then we may have exposed a very
fundamental problem with China, which I think we would have to
address, but right now I think that to me it is a case of a
country turning a blind eye and letting suppliers do things
that they are not allowed to do legally.
Mr. Burton. If the chairman would yield me a little extra
time?
Chairman Berman. It is your time.
Mr. Burton. Well, my time has run out, but if you could
just be a little lenient I would appreciate it.
First of all, China is a totalitarian state. For somebody
to tell me that they don't know that----
Mr. Albright. It is a wild west.
Mr. Burton. Come on.
Mr. Albright. No. It is.
Mr. Burton. Naivete is running rampant sometimes. I don't
believe that. I believe that they know what is going on and
that they probably have the ability to turn a blind eye and
they probably do, but here is the thing. I would like to have,
and I am sure the chairman would share in this.
I would like to have any suggestions you have on things
that we could do to put pressure on Russia, China or any of our
allies that are doing business with Iran or Korea that is
endangering the security of the region and the United States of
America. I think it would be great because we have gone through
this whole hearing, and what we are talking about right now is
one of the most relevant parts of the hearing. It is how are
they getting this stuff and how do we stop it and what kind of
steps can we take to stop it.
I have one more question real quick, and then I will let
you guys go have lunch. It is a little late, but I wish you
well. And that is I had a number of televised meetings with one
of my colleagues that used to be close to the Russian Duma,
Curt Weldon, who is no longer in Congress, and he brought
before me a mockup of a briefcase nuclear weapon that the
Russians had perfected that weighed about 40 pounds, and it
could destroy eight square blocks--make it all a cinder--if it
was utilized.
They have never been able to account for about 50 of those.
I just wonder if any of those got into the hands of, and you
may not be able to answer this. If they got into the hands of
the Iranians. I understand they have to be upgraded and
additional materials have to be put in them, but are they
capable?
Are they in the process or could they be in the process of
developing these nukes that could be put in a backpack or
briefcase that could get into the United States and do as much
damage in the short run as a major nuclear weapon?
Mr. Luongo. Well, the Russians developed very small,
tactical nuclear weapons that could be man portable. They had
atomic demolition mines and other things. It is true that the
material in those weapons, just like in other Russian weapons,
deteriorates at a more rapid pace than say other countries. I
don't know how many have not been accounted for. The Russians
have not been particularly transparent.
Mr. Burton. Well, we talked to people in the Duma and the
KGB, Mr. Weldon did, and he assured me there were about 85 to
100 produced and they can only account for about 35 to 40 of
them.
Mr. Luongo. Yes. I am familiar with former Congressman
Weldon's statements on the subject. The Russians I think have
assured the United States Government that they are not floating
around. That is my understanding at least.
Mr. Albright. Yes. If I could add? On Iranian capabilities,
according to the IAEA reporting both internally, and we have
put some of the sort of internal documents that were linked out
on our Web site. They are looking for a warhead that is about
.6 meters across. It is not that big. It will weigh several
hundred kilograms.
But still, they are shooting for a small warhead and the
assessments by the IAEA are that they can do that. It may not
be reliable, and they have some work to do to finish that, but
essentially their focus is on smaller weapons.
Mr. Burton. Would that be portable, something that could be
carried?
Mr. Albright. Well, sure. It is not going to be carried on
someone's back, but it is not hard to transport that kind of
thing.
If you are talking about unsophisticated delivery systems,
you have to worry a great deal about Iran having enough highly
enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. We shouldn't just think
of it as they have the material and then somehow we have 3 or 4
years before they could actually mount it on a missile.
The problems of putting it on the missile are quite a bit
more than if you just wanted to put together a smaller nuclear
weapon that would not have to survive the harsh environment
that a missile would have to go through, so I think we do have
to worry that if Iran does make a move to get HEU and it gets
it that we have to worry a great deal about unsophisticated
delivery systems.
Mr. Ford. If I might add, sir, on the note of Iranian
acquisition of material, there are some famous problems with
sort of the infamous 2007 national intelligence estimate on
Iran that the U.S. intelligence community put out, but one of
the interesting and much overlooked comments in there was the
assessment or the suspicion with a degree of certainty--I have
forgotten how probable they thought it was, but it was
believed, as I recall, that Iran had indeed acquired through
sort of smuggling links or something, had acquired some
quantity of fissile material.
Not weapons. That was not the statement, but the idea was
that they probably had not acquired enough to use that material
in a weapon, but that there had indeed been essentially
smuggling derived acquisition of fissile material by the
Iranian regime probably from the former Soviet Union, but I
don't think it was explicitly said.
But quite apart from the issue of backpack nukes, I mean,
there was already stuff out there about Iran having acquired
fissile material on presumably international black markets.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Berman. I will close with just this article dated
today on NPR. It is on their Web site anyway. Algeria, Egypt,
Kuwait, Libya and Syria and others made it clear at a
disarmament meeting at the U.N. General Assembly that they
would oppose a series of U.S. backed measures, including a
proposal to strengthen U.N. scrutiny of countries' nuclear
energy programs designed to reign in nuclear proliferators like
North Korea and Iran.
There is mistrust, said Egypt's U.N. Ambassador, chairman
of the Non-Aligned Movement. Speaking for the General Assembly
debate entitled Disarmament of World Security, the Egyptian
envoy said the five major nuclear powers are seeking to impose
new demands on non-nuclear powers while failing to fully live
up to their own disarmament obligations and permitting a
special group of actors--Indian, Israel, Pakistan--a free pass
to produce nuclear weapons without having to abide by the
obligations of signatories.
The Ambassador thought to turn the tables on the big
powers, demanding the nuclear states submit themselves to U.N.
inspections under their nuclear programs and commit to the
total elimination of atomic weapons by a certain date and
indicated his opposition to a series of Western-backed
initiatives to punish countries who withdraw from the NPT and
plan to establish a U.N. fuel bank to supply nuclear non-
nuclear states.
Maybe an argument for your theory of the credibility issue
here in terms of what we are doing, but I am curious. Is this
just sort of ideological and stick your thumb in our eye, or
for Egypt, let us say, is this a hedge based on what Iran might
achieve to give them sort of the flexibility to make their own
moves in response?
Mr. Ford. I have made that suggestion publicly myself, what
you are just suggesting, and I was intrigued to hear it from
Ambassador Burk here a little while ago. She chastised me at a
conference last fall for having the bad manners to articulate
that theory to the Egyptian representative present, but I am
glad to see that it is in fact an Obama administration concern
as well that we share that.
I am very worried about this. The Egyptians in particular,
but not exclusively, have been laying the groundwork for a
diplomatic campaign to raise the Israeli issue for some time.
We have seen that over the past several years with what gives
every appearance of being a very systematic campaign to prepare
for some kind of an ultimatum of sorts, whatever you want to
call it, in connection perhaps with this RevCon.
What they demand has never been particularly clear to me.
What they would consider to be resolution of the problem in
practical terms, as opposed to pie in the sky terms, has never
been very clear to me, and it is very possible that the
coincidence of all of these issues having been raised in the
wake of the outing of Iran's secret nuclear work in 2002 is no
coincidence at all and that this is in fact some kind of a
hedge.
I can't say that that is the case. I worry about it very
much, and I am glad that it is actually publicly being talked
about.
Mr. Albright. I think both are going on. This is the
rhetoric you run into at this conference, and it is the job of
the United States and its allies to come up with decent
language that serves U.S. and nonproliferation interests.
In fact, I can tell you that senior Egyptian officials have
said who are in the government--they claim they are talking
privately, but they said look, if this plays out with Iran
getting nuclear weapons, nothing is done about Israel, then we
will probably withdraw. And then they add, of course, that of
course we won't build nuclear weapons.
I didn't think to remind them at the time that when North
Korea withdrew in 2003 it said we will only do peaceful
activities. So, I mean, I think we are heading to a very bad
time potentially, and whether this nonproliferation regime
continues is going to be based on what we do about Iran.
Mr. Burton. I would like the other ideas.
Chairman Berman. Great. We are very receptive to your
ideas, but try to get them in before they have the nuclear
weapon.
The hearing is adjourned. Thank you all very much for your
interest.
[Whereupon, at 1:02 p.m. the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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