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U.S.-Russia Plutonium Disposal Project Languishing
Peter Slevin
Washington Post
May 10, 2004

With much fanfare, the world's two nuclear superpowers announced in 1998 that they would destroy 68 tons of plutonium stripped from bombs and warheads. The cost, counted in billions, would be borne largely by the United States and European governments intent on removing dangerous fissile material from circulation.

Six years later, the project sits stalled. The plutonium remains intact, and no construction has begun on either of the planned processing factories. In frustration, some U.S. analysts and politicians are doubting the Bush administration's commitment.

This has happened because the United States and Russia have been unable to agree on who would pay if an accident -- or sabotage -- occurred in Russia. The Bush administration wants Russia to take full responsibility, and the Russians are balking.

The stalemate comes when the fear of nuclear terrorism is growing and President Bush is pledging aggressive action. Nuclear specialists and some members of Congress say the case highlights a failure by the White House to back up its nonproliferation ambitions with action.

"How a little issue of indemnification can hold this up is beyond me," Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) told top Energy Department officials at a recent hearing. "This is a way to get rid of a huge chunk of nuclear-grade plutonium."

The project was blocked by "trivial negotiating issues," Domenici said. He added that he told the White House "that maybe they ought to put some bigger people in the position of negotiating." Plutonium is not easily obtained, but Russia is considered to be the site of the largest and most vulnerable stockpiles.

"It's a very messy, messy situation," said Kenneth Luongo, executive director of the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council. The project, he said, has been "in the works for a decade, and we haven't moved beyond the talking phase."

Agreements to build parallel plants in Siberia and South Carolina expired last year. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said in March that the administration hoped to resolve the issue by this spring and asserted that it "is being worked at high levels."

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld are among those who have raised the issue with their Russian counterparts. Despite intensive discussions within the administration in recent weeks, a White House official conceded that the issue is "one of those things that have been on the one-yard line a long time." Abraham reported in his annual budget request that construction was officially 10 months behind schedule but should begin by May 2005 if an agreement can be reached. He said money will be needed to start building the plants that convert plutonium into mixed oxide fuel for nuclear reactors.

"We are confident that we can work it out. We are not that far apart, believe it or not," said Paul M. Longsworth, deputy Energy Department administrator, who acknowledged that the positions remain "pretty firm right now."

"Plutonium disposition is a 20-year program that is going to eliminate enough plutonium to make far more than 10,000 nuclear weapons," Longsworth said. "You've got to start it right."

On Feb. 11, in a speech intended to amplify his record on nonproliferation and inspire other countries to do more, the president declared that governments around the world "must do all we can to secure and eliminate nuclear and chemical and biological and radiological materials."

A particular worry is that terrorist organizations or rogue states will buy or steal a nuclear weapon or the fissile material that powers an atomic blast. Many scientists and public policy experts believe that an organized group or government that acquires fissile material would have little trouble assembling a crude weapon.

To build an atomic bomb from 50-year-old technology would require about 13 pounds of plutonium, said Thomas Cochran, director of nuclear projects at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Libya, which recently abandoned its fledgling secret nuclear program, acquired a bomb design of that vintage from the illicit supply network run by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

U.S. government facilities are also vulnerable, the General Accounting Office said in a report released late last month. The Energy Department's responses to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were "not sufficient" to ensure that all of its sites are prepared "to defend themselves against the higher terrorist threat present in a post-Sept. 11 . . . world," the GAO said.

In Russia, basic security improvements have not been made at dozens of military installations where more than 60 percent of the country's plutonium and weapons-grade uranium is kept, the GAO warned last year.

GAO auditors blamed Russia for failing to allow U.S. officials to visit key sites but also said Congress and the Bush administration exacerbated the delays by denying critical funds or refusing to grant contract waivers. When the report came out, the United States had spent $6 billion since 1992 to help Russia destroy or safeguard nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

"The big problem is there's a leadership gap. These are not big obstacles. They can be handled by leaders who are determined and can be focused," said former U.S. senator Sam Nunn, who with Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) backed the vast counterproliferation program that bears their names.

The project to destroy 68 tons of plutonium -- half in Russia and half in the United States -- was designed as part of the cooperative project to reduce the risk of fissile material falling into the wrong hands. Announced during the Clinton administration, the program was formally launched during a presidential summit in Moscow in 1998.

Domenici, who helped direct $200 million to the project in its first year, attended the summit as President Bill Clinton's guest. He has been among the sharpest critics of the Bush administration's inability to keep the program on track.

The sticking point is the issue of liability for potentially catastrophic problems. In threat-reduction agreements signed in the mid-1990s, Russia agreed to take responsibility in return for help from foreign governments in disarming former Soviet nuclear weapons and improving security.

"If something blew, Russia would pay. No ifs, ands or buts," said Leonard S. Spector, director of the Washington office for the Monterey Institute of International Studies' Center for Nonproliferation Studies. But on the plutonium program and a project known as the Nuclear Cities Initiative, the Russians insisted that if U.S. contractors were to blame, they or the federal government should be liable for damages and possible prosecution.

Sabotage is a particular worry, the Russians told U.S. negotiators, who have been led by Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton.

"They kept saying, 'Hey, you can hire Chechen rebels under contract and they could blow up our facilities, and we would be powerless to prosecute,' " said an administration official closely involved in the issues, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "We said that's ridiculous. We don't hire people who will conduct sabotage."

The Bush administration is adamant that U.S. companies and officials are engaged in a goodwill effort and should not be held liable for unintended problems. The liability negotiations commanded attention at the 2002 summit of the world's most industrialized countries, which pledged $20 billion for 10 years of nonproliferation programs in Russia.

There is a disagreement within the administration, where sources said the Defense and State departments have demanded the more stringent liability provision, while the Energy Department believed that a somewhat less rigorous formula was sufficient.

"What you would have thought was an incidental legal issue looms so large," said Spector, who suggested sharing the burden, a structure established in the civilian nuclear power sector. "Everybody is frustrated that an additional hurdle is being presented that has to be overcome."

As the negotiations continue, the potential dangers remain, critics believe.

"The implications are that you're going to have 68 additional tons of weapons-grade plutonium lying around the United States and Russia," said Luongo, the nuclear security specialist. "And Russia, in particular, is where security is not up to global standards."