Cooperative Threat Reductio Ad Absurdum

...This disregard was on display at Shchuchye, an $890 million facility designed to destroy Russian chemical weapons stockpiles to keep the country in compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention, which it signed in 1993...

...Right next to a missile assembly plant...

...Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was more blunt in an interview with Jim Lehrer...

...missile defense...

...The question is: Are we more secure with 30 rusting SS-19s taking up 30 missile silos, or with 30 unused SS-19s with warheads aimed at the United States...

...Russia agreed to pony up an additional $750 million for the project, but had only provided $25 million at last count...

...Nevertheless, despite the considerable failings of CTR in recent years, Democrats have made the program the cure-all for Eastern proliferation issues...

...It was unbelievable...

...Yes, but only if a warts-and-all examination of the program, something not possible thus far, is done...

...Votkinsk didn't get its topological due until 1988, when the first Americans came to the city to serve as inspectors under the START and INF treaties...

...As the U.S...

...The Russian economy has bounced back...

...Shumkov closed the letter with suggestions for what to do with the now worthless plant, which basically amounted to gutting the building and selling the parts on the world market...

...Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry plans to commit $30 billion to CTR, a sum he promises would eliminate all of Russia's WMD in four years—a dubious claim at best considering that over SHAWN MACOMBER the last 12 years only a third of Russia's weapons-grade nuclear material has been secured...

...Russia agreed to come up with the other $275 million once the program was under way, but ultimately reneged...

...It's the smaller parts that are harder to make, and therefore more sought after on the black market—the nozzles covered with a special, light coating of metal that are the key to steering a large missile, for example...

...Without verification, everything remains in question...

...It is not unreasonable to ask, for example, whether the United States and Russia still agree on disarmament goals...

...Today Votkinsk is easily found on a map, yet it has become a black hole in another way, swallowing up millions of U.S...

...Cooperation has dwindled, to the point where a CTR "success story" is often considered anything that gets done at all, no matter the cost or dubious value to U.S...

...BY SHAWN MACOMBER V OTKINSK, THE BIRTHPLACE OF COMPOSER PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY, may have been founded in 1759, but during Soviet times the city didn't make it onto most maps...

...has been providing Russia with security equipment for facilities housing WMD, The breakup of the Soviet Union left Russia in chaos and financial ruin—sitting atop the world's largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction...

...Agency for International Development, took pictures of themselves gleefully gloating among $15 million worth of gas lines, warehouses, and roads, all abandoned, never to be used, as if impeding America from disposing of WMDs was a tremendous victory...

...According to a GAO report, the U.S...

...has spent $171 million for operational support and development at sites across Russia...

...I have already said this and I want to say it again: Russia regards nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence as the basis for global stability...

...After the war, production morphed again into strategic missile production, and at the height of the Cold War the factory was cranking out close to 50 ICBMs a year, just in case they should ever have to raze American cities to "defend" the Workers' Paradise...

...INCREDIBLY, VOTKINSK IS NOT an isolated incident...

...But Russia is a very different country today than it was in 1992, said Ilan Berman, vice-presidentof the American Foreign Policy Council...

...An examination of the CTR program by the GAO found that the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy had denied American teams access to 73 percent of buildings with weapons-usable material housed in them...

...Russia is an active proliferator," he said...

...should be reimbursed for the huge outlay of cash with the profits Russia made from satellite launches...

...In fact, the environmental "concerns" became a new type of "greenmail," used to wrestle more goodies for the municipality and the Udmurt region, where Votkinsk is located...

...You can't throw a rug over that and smuggle it across the Iranian border...

...But did CTR at least serve the security interests of curtailing proliferation of missile technology to rogue states...

...Ivanov told a NATO conference this July...

...These materials cannot be easily carted off by would-be terrorists, who could not use them anyhow," California Republican Rep...

...Shawn Macomber is a reporter for The American Spectator...

...The Votkinsk plant was also given a task of building the newest Russian Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile, "Bulava" (Fighting Mace...

...Or that this program would eliminate stockpiles of missiles that actually did pose a threat to the local population and the world...

...The Soviets had their reasons for keeping Votkinsk under wraps...

...Hardly...

...But Russia has now purchased some 30 new SS -19 missiles from Ukraine to take their place in the same silos...

...overtures for cooperation regarding Iraq...

...And CTR management agreed to do it...

...Considering the unwillingness of the Putin administration to intervene then, the possibility that Shchuchye could become a billion dollar boondoggle for CTR is not beyond the realm of imagination...

...Nunn-Lugar came along at a time in the early 90s when Russia was literally broke," he said...

...With little protest, CTR quickly agreed to put up $385 million to get the site up and running, and as yet has received no firm assurances from the Russian government that it will front the more than $10 million annual operating costs of the facility...

...A first stage ballistic missile motor weighs 48 tons...

...No alternate use could be found for the $80 mil-lion design...

...They are part of the problem...

...AC CCORDING TO BILL MCCOY, ho formerly dealt with he mechanics of CTR policy, the U.S...

...The memorandum casts doubt on whether the Russians have been honest in their declarations on chemical and biological weapons stockpiles...

...But CTR has become a pet project for some in the government, which essentially means its supAn examination of the CTR program by the GAO found that the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy has denied American teams access to 73 percent of the buildings with weapons-usable materials housed in them...

...Never mind that studies showed that the facility would clearly not affect the area's air quality...

...Duncan Hunter wrote in the Washington Post last year...

...A Pentagon investigation into CTR waste earlier this year was too mincing to be useful...

...Ivanov is proclaiming Russia's indifference to a disarmament regime...

...Last year, the entire project went off the rails...

...We are now faced with a Russia blatantly uncooperative with regard to CTR as well as other American foreign policy objectives...

...But in the eyes of CTR cheerleaders, the program overrides U.S...

...The most outrageous case of lack of transparency has to be the Liquid Propellant Disposition System at Krasnoyarsk, a $106 million facility built by CTR at Russia's request to dispose of 30,000 metric tons of heptyl (liquid fuel) and 123,000 metric tons of amyl or oxidizer...

...Destroying Russia's WMD stockpiles is a noble goal...

...installs it, the Russians will pay to run it...

...The public boasting of Putin and his top officials about Russia's military expansion and capabilities is not the rhetoric of a weak regime...

...national security interests...

...they are paying off the national debt and even building cash reserves...

...An official White House memorandum on CTR notes that the "Secretary of State is unable to certify that the Russian Federation is committed to foregoing any military modernization program that exceeds legitimate defense requirements and foregoing the replacement of destroyed weapons of mass destruction...

...security interests...

...defense dollars...

...SEPTEMBER 2004 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 35...

...We're supposed to take their word for it, which as anybody who has been over there knows, is a criminally stupid policy...

...SEPTEMBER 2004 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 33 COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM with the understanding that if the U.S...

...International environmental groups, including those funded by a grant from the U.S...

...TIIIS LACK OF TRANSPARENCY IS NOTHING NEW...

...We weren't just building a burn chamber for old motors at Votkinsk," a former CTR coordinator said on condition of anonymity "The Russians kept pushing us for a stronger chamber until it finally became clear they were trying to get us to build them a testing chamber...

...Worse, the United States, under the auspices of disarmament, is paying to upgrade Russian military capabilities, in ways that might not be as obvious as the scam at Votkinsk...

...Additionally, at the same time it paid for improvements to the de-fueling ship, CTR was funding onshore nuclear de-fueling facilities to accomplish the same task...

...Yet, the new age must not necessarily be accompanied by dismantlement of the military and the political legacy of the past...

...Additionally, Americans have been denied entry into sites where it is believed the Russian government continues an offensive biological weapons program in violation of treaty obligations, including production of such nasty bugs as Ebola and the Marburg virus, pathogens that could kill millions in the wrong hands...

...side" that the plant would be useless, and goes on to explain that while there is still heptyl to be reprocessed, Russia would be holding on to it "due to an increased number of Proton missile launches in future years...

...is paying to dismantle Russian SS-19 missiles...

...They are part of the problem...

...But their unwillingness to allow American inspectors to take a look around reeks of secrecy and deceit...

...We [Russia and the United States] do have common interests to a certain point," says Ban Berman, vice-president of the American Foreign Policy Council...

...A coalition of local politicians, ostensibly, was able to block it on the basis of "environmental concerns...

...Last year a U.S...

...Army War College...

...In addition to the plant itself, several million dollars were spent to provide Russia with flatbed railcars, specially designed tank containers, and cranes to help transport the propellant...

...Adding insult to injury, Russia continues to deny American inspectors access to the Mayak facility that American dollars just built, thus making it impossible to know exactly what is being stored there...

...Russian politics has changed vastly since the early 1990s...

...In addition, Russia's spending priorities and contributions do not reflect a continuing, mutual interest in disarmament...

...Originally the plant busied itself casting parts for steamships, barges, and bridges, but during World War II the plant was militarized, producing various artillery and anti-tank pieces...

...Thanks to CTR, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus are free of nuclear weapons, a fact that comforts Russians more than us, no doubt...

...to thwart a war with Iraq deemed necessary for American security...

...It is possible, of course, that the Russians are using the facility to store precisely the materials the U.S...

...continued to dole outhundreds of millions of dollars to help Russia clean up a weapons crisis of its own making, Russians were scheming in back rooms at the U.N...

...The fuel and engines instead represent an environmental challenge—one that might warrant a good many Russian rubles but certainly not hundreds of millions of already overstretched U.S...

...The Russians haven't publicly announced where the motors for these costly missiles were tested...

...CTR official went to Moscow during the week of March 25 to cajole the Russians into accepting an additional $150 million at the very moment the Russians were thumbing their noses at U.S...

...So there have been no midcourse corrections, and the program has become a bit sidetracked...

...Imagine as many as 40 research institutes dedicated to the "development and production of biological weapons" scattered throughout the country, and between 30,000 and 75,000 "senior nuclear, chemical and biological weapons scientists and thousands of less experienced junior scientists" out of work...

...Who approved this payment after disapproval by two senior policy managers...

...To give some idea of the magnitude of the crisis, imagine a cash-strapped nation in an era of nihilism with more than 30,000 nuclear weapons, 600 metric tons of weapons-usable nuclear materials, 40,000 metric tons of "declared" chemical weapons, and 2,100 missile and bomber systems capable of delivering those weapons at its disposal...

...taxpayer dollars...

...More worrisome still is that only concern for "Russian integrity" prevents the on-shore de-fueling facilities from being used to refuel Russian nuclear submarines...

...But the Russians have brazenly refused to pay...

...The long-held excuse that Putin was too weak politically to foist a disarmament regime on the Russian military is losing credence in the aftermath of his landslide reelection...

...Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government shrugged their shoulders at the whole affair...

...A letter to CTR program directors obtained by The American Spectator makes clear that Nikolai Shumkov, deputy director general of the Russian Air and Space Agency, was not in the throes of guilt over this massive deception...

...proliferator," Rumsfeld said...

...THE BREAK-UP of the Soviet Union left Russia in chaos and financial ruin—sitting atop the world's largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction...

...When all was said and done, and the Americans asked for deliveries to begin, the Russians disclosed that there wasn't any heptyl or 34 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2004 amyl to be disposed of—they had already used the fuel in launches of commercial satellites and a new line of Proton missiles...

...He also wants to expand the program to India and Pakistan, countries with arguably less incentive to disarm than Russia...

...Richard Lugar's well-meaning Cooperative Threat Reduction efforts have turned into a Russian version of "take the money and run" and build new WMDs...

...The CTR program inexplicably paid nearly $400,000 for repairs and operation of an active, commissioned Russian nuclear fuel ship, the PM-74, after the request had been disapproved twice, once by acting principal director Susan Koch and again by deputy assistant secretary of defense Marshall Billingslea...

...But in fact there has been no loss of continuity—the same cast of players involved now was present in the mid-1990s...

...Not once does Shumkov suggest the U.S...

...Without a doubt, the CTR program has done some amazing work, deactivating 5,990 nuclear warheads and destroying 479 ballistic missiles, 435 ballistic missile silos, 97 bombers, 336 submarine-launched missiles, 396 submarine missile launchers, and 24 strategic missile submarine...

...We don't get those parts, which are really the most important parts, from the Russians," the CTR coordinator said...

...Built on a tributary of the Kama River, the city was settled by decree of the Empress Elizabeth to house employees of Votkinsky Zavod, a steel works plant that remains one of the largest defense plants in Russia today...

...Some former CTR program officials claim there may have been a more nefarious motive behind Russia's request...

...Votkinsk is so desolate polar bears would love to see a pipeline built so they'd have something to scratch their ass on," one incredulous State Department employee who visited the facility said...

...Russia's defense budget for 2004 is up approximately 20 percent from last year, and an analysis published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies reports that Russia's annual defense spending increased by 170 billion rubles between 1999 and 2002, while its disarmament budget rose by only 8 billion...

...Attempting to prevent an unprecedented catastrophe, Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, and Republican Richard Lugar authored the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, signed into law in 1991...

...At Russia's request, CTR built a huge storage facility for dismantled nuclear warheads and plutonium at Mayak...

...Since 1995, the U.S...

...Shumkov allows that CTR directors were "justified in claiming that the Russian side should have informed the U.S...

...Through CTR, the United States pays to keep the Russian military in line with its obligations under disarmament treaties, while Russia invests in new weapons programs...

...Votkinsk now produces the Topol-M, a state of the art ICBM with a 7,000 mile range first tested in 2000, and which, according to Putin, "can hit targets at intercontinental distance and can adjust their altitude and course as they travel...

...The Russians rarely share costs these days, even if cost sharing had been previously agreed upon...

...At the time of CTR's inception, Russia was too weak to address proliferation concerns...

...is building...

...The Russians wanted U.S...

...The inspector general's report said that the program had derailed because, "positions responsible for CTR oversight were vacant for almost five years" and that there was not "an adequate chain of command between the organizations responsible for implementation and those responsible for oversight...

...What did they care...

...Things are not much better over at Mayak in Russia's Southern Ural mountains, home of the largest nuclear complex on the planet...

...built it to store and nothing else...

...As the scope of the Cooperative Threat Reduction program has expanded far beyond its original mission, the Russian government has come to see CTR as an entitlement, not a joint venture...

...taxpayers to develop a fully integrated PHOTOS: VIKTOR KOROTAYEV/REUTERS SEPTEMBER 2004 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 31 COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM missile production facility for them...

...The monetary situation in Russia is now far less a factor...

...As part of the increasingly unfocused and freewheeling Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, 30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2004 SHAWN MACOMBER the U.S...

...Vice-presidential nominee John Edwards has likewise advocated a threefold increase in funding for CTR, to be paid for by slashing spending on U.S...

...CAN CTR BE REFORMED...

...Most of the dismantlement programs the United States initiated to secure and ultimately destroy Russian nuclear, biological, and chemical weapon systems appear to be completed or no longer agree with Moscow's policy goals," Justin Bernier writes in Parameters, the quarterly journal of the U.S...

...is taking Shumkov's advice and expects to recoup about one million dollars on its $106 million investment...

...government doled out nearly $100 million to build a state of the art "low-pressure, contained burn system" in Votkinsk to dispose of the solid propellant from SS -24, SS -25, and SS-N-20 ballistic missile motors at the request of the Russian government...

...Still, they are unwilling to increase their investment in disarmament so long as America remains so willing to put up the money regardless of whether the Russians hold up their end of the bargain or not...

...The money it saves on disarmament funnels right back around to military programs...

...The U.S...

...Even the godfather of CTR, Dick Lugar, was barred from visiting a bio-weapons facility on a trip to Russia two years ago, without explanation...

...As Justin Bernier points out in Parameters, "Russia's conscious decision to vigorously invest in new ballistic missile submarines and new long range bombers and new ICBMs and gigantic bomb shelters, but not in ongoing disarmament projects, raises serious questions about its willingness to properly prioritize its growing economic resources...

...The U.S...

...The CTR program delivered vast sums of money in hard times, which encouraged the Russian government to cooperate...

...Meanwhile, local officials are beginning to make rumbles about shutting down the facility on environmental grounds, openly trumpeting the railroading of Votkinsk as a model...

...Or that the United States itself had been successfully burning similar motors in the open air at a fraction of the cost...

...The world has changed," Russia's Defense Minister S.B...

...In other words, it can evade the very missile defense shield the U.S...

...As the U.S...

...It wasn't their money, and, anyway, as they have made abundantly clear over the last few years, a program of total disarmament jives less and less with Russia's revived nationalistic and imperial ambitions all the time...

...These environmental claims were a complete, very expensive joke...

...But the mischief rampant in the CTR program isn't advancing it...

...writes checks, Russia refuses to stop selling nuclear secrets and materials to the mullahs in Iran, official sponsors of Hezbollah, the organization many blame for the Khobar Towers attack in 1996...

...This breakdown led Congressman Hunter in the 32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2004 aforementioned Washington Post piece to write that although CTR was designed as "a temporary, focused effort to shrink Moscow's vast strategic arsenal" it had "over time, morphed into an open-ended, unfocused and sometimes self-defeating venture...

...government in theory limited CTR funding of the project to $275 million, approximately half the cost...

...SHAWN MACOMBER "Russia is an active porters are reluctant to acknowledge mistakes or have a serious discussion about reforming it...