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Experts Hail CTR Extension

Global Security Newswire

June 20, 2006

Arms control specialists praised the recent Russian-U.S. deal to extend by seven years the Cooperative Threat Reduction agreement aimed at securing former Soviet WMD stockpiles, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, June 16).

“The extension of the umbrella agreement is critical,” said Raphael Della Ratta, a weapons specialist at the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council. Without it, “nuclear weapons delivery systems would not be dismantled, chemical weapons would remain unsecured and undestroyed and biological pathogens would remain unsecured as well.”

The original 1992 agreement was co-sponsored by Senators Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and was renewed in 1999. Weapons deactivated or destroyed in those years include 6,828 nuclear warheads, 612 ICBMs, 885 nuclear air-to-surface missiles, 577 submarine-launched missiles, 155 bombers and 29 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, according to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. About half of the nuclear warheads, ICBMs, ICBM silos, submarine-launched missiles and nuclear submarines scheduled for disposal have yet to be dealt with, according to the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

“We are in a race against time to secure these materials before they’re lost, stolen or get into the wrong hands,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “This is a necessary but insufficient step. The [Bush] administration needs to push down the accelerator in terms of the pace of work.”

Lugar called on Congress to remove other conditions that could undermine the effort. “If the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is the number one national security threat facing our country, we cannot permit any delays in our response,” he said (Peter Baker, Washington Post, June 20).