Panel I of a Hearing of the House Committee on Int. Rel.-The Bush Administration and Non-proliferation: A New Strategy Emerges

Federal News Service March 30, 2004 Tuesday
Copyright 2004 The Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service

March 30, 2004 Tuesday

HEADLINE: PANEL I OF A HEARING OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

SUBJECT: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND NONPROLIFERATION: A NEW STRATEGY EMERGES

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE HENRY HYDE (R-IL)

WITNESS: JOHN R. BOLTON, UNDER SECRETARY FOR ARMS CONTROL AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

LOCATION: 2172 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:

REP. HENRY HYDE (R-IL): The committee will come to order.

We live in a world and in a city where rumblings of warning blend into a familiar background, where fluency in the language of crises is widely shared, where doomsayers and Cassandras readily ply their trade. Some alarms are of an immediate nature and are drawn from the empirical world; others are distilled from more abstract projections. But I can think of no scenario more frightening, more disastrous, than that of terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction, of which nuclear weapons are the transcendent example.

Few would disagree that combating this threat must be among our highest national priorities. And yet that resolution has not always been matched by concrete action.

I speak here not as a partisan, for the successes and failures in this area can be widely distributed among parties, factions, individuals, and schools of thought. But none would maintain that all that could be done, all that should be done to avert this unparalleled disaster, has in fact been done.

Over the decades, a number of policies, actions, programs, and efforts have been advanced to address the many challenges of this hydra-headed problem. The collective result of these labors constitutes an enormous success, but, nevertheless, our current defenses remain far from perfect. And yet our goal must be perfection, for our vessel is a leaky one, where even a single hole can be an opening to the Apocalypse.

Our regime of safeguards has taken shape in piecemeal fashion, often in a reactive response to correct problems that have been unexpectedly unearthed. Perhaps the best example is the revelation, in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, of the scale of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs, including the bone- chilling discovery that his nuclear ambitions were within an estimated six months from being realized. This and other providential discoveries underscored the gross inadequacy of the existing inspection procedures and led to the crafting of the so-called Additional Protocol, which mandates far more intrusive measures than those of the original Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But even these much-strengthened measures cannot compensate for other fatal shortcomings which may become evident only in retrospect. The sudden and recent exposure of Iran's longstanding efforts to acquire a nuclear capability, and its success in assembling key elements of a weapons program, have once again demonstrated the harvest of deadly consequences that complacency may sow.

This being an election year, the contest is joined on all fronts. To its detractors, this administration has been guilty of any number of sins in its foreign policy, a criticism that sometimes extends to the limits of geography and propriety. However, what I find most surprising is that little or no attention has been devoted by either detractors or supporters to what is undeniably a major success, namely the crafting of an innovative, comprehensive, and-this is of crucial importance-action-oriented strategy of preemptive nonproliferation.

Methodically, piece-by-piece, the Administration has reinvented the nonproliferation regime it inherited, crafting policies to fill gaping holes, reinforcing earlier patchwork fixes, assembling allies, creating precedents, setting new limits, changing perceived realities. It's an enormous achievement, worthy of universal praise. And it's still building.

To this administration must go the credit for many long-delayed but indispensable actions to reverse our slide toward the chasm. I will cite only a couple of examples, with counter-trafficking measures taking pride of place.

Among the most prominent innovations is the Proliferation Security Initiative, the cooperative arrangement among a growing number of countries that is aimed at taking direct action to intercept the illegal transshipment of weapons of mass destruction weapons, components and materials. This is a muscular enhancement of our ability to halt trafficking in the components of these weapons. I confess that once it was announced, my immediate response was, "Why weren't we doing this thirty years ago?" Nevertheless, I am very thankful that it is being done at last.

Despite this program's infancy, there have already been notable successes. It was the interception of a vessel loaded with nuclear components for Libya that helped convince Qadhafi that the days of his undisturbed accumulation of the instrument of destructions were over.

Much attention has been focused on the revelations of the stunningly extensive nature of the trafficking in nuclear technology and materials by members of Pakistan's nuclear programs. These revelations, combined with invaluable information from Libya's program, have torn the cover from the international black market in nuclear technology and know-how, which, prior to this inside information, had been only sketchily understood.

What's usually overlooked, however, is the administration's success in persuading the leaders of Pakistan to take active measures to interrupt the proliferation of nuclear materials and assistance that has metastasized unchecked from that country for many years. We're now in the process of unraveling that network and preventing the horrors its commerce would otherwise bring into being.

Despite its caricatured image of being oblivious to potential support from the international community, the administration will shortly announce success in its efforts to prod the U.N. to greater endeavors in nonproliferation, having crafted what is likely to be a unanimous resolution by the Security Council mandating that all member countries adopt effective measures to prevent the illegal trafficking in weapons of mass destruction-related goods, with the prospect of establishing universal adherence to these rules.

There are many other elements deserving mention. I'll refrain from doing so in order to focus on the central innovation which I believe is indispensable for any successful nonproliferation effort, namely the demonstrated credibility of action, for this represents nothing less than a transforming precedent.

Now making the rounds is the view that the United States has lost credibility around the world due to our policy in Iraq. I suggest the exact opposite is true: We, in fact, have gained enormous, immensely valuable and even decisive credibility from our actions there. For the next time the U.S., or at least this president, warns some foreign despot to cease actions that we believe are threatening to our security, my hunch is that he'll listen, and he'll listen carefully. The fact that we went into Iraq virtually alone, excepting our courageous partner Great Britain, not only without the sanction of the international community but in blunt defiance of its strenuous efforts to stop us, is far from the ruinous negative it is often portrayed as. In fact, it's all to the good, for it is unambiguous proof that absolutely nothing will deter us, that the entire world arrayed against us cannot stop us. The message on those on the receiving end couldn't be clearer, and unless they're suicidal, they'll understand that their options have been radically narrowed.

This isn't theory. Already, the administration has won another victory in Muammar Qadhafi's decision to surrender his weapons of mass destruction programs in direct consequence of our actions in Iraq. And it's a powerful precedent, for the-it's the first time that a state has surrendered these weapons without a regime change. If Qadhafi makes good on his promise, and if we can in confidence readmit him fully to the international community, the effect on others cannot but be salutary. For we can then offer offenders a stark choice of the sword or the olive branch, of destruction or the rewards of cooperation, with all ambiguity torn away, and thereby refocus their cold calculations of self-interest away from ambition and toward survival.

Our intervention in Iraq has made this seminal message both possible and credible for the first time. Can anyone cognizant of the threats we face doubt its value?

The benefits of this new mode of interaction are evident in the current stand-off with Iran. The recent and unexpected exposure of Iran's massive nuclear weapons program has startled that regime into a hastily constructed policy of stalling and superficial cooperation. Only a fool would believe that the Iranians will voluntarily abandon their nuclear ambitions, but their coerced cooperation has been helpfully motivated by their fear of U.S. action against them. Here as well, Iran's adherence to the deal it cut with Britain, France and Germany for a suspension of its programs has been made more likely by the existence of the U.S. threat, a source of real-world leverage that even the Europeans privately acknowledge to be useful. That situation is far from resolved, but does anyone actually believe that the possibility of halting Iran's march would even exist without Saddam's sobering example?

None of this has been lost on the North Korean regime. Our demonstrated willingness to use force to remove a threat, paired with the possibility of reward for cooperation, provides the decision- makers in Pyongyang with useful instruction in the rules of this new world. Once again, this bracketing of the regime's options was made possible by our actions in Iraq.

Clearly, the administration's actions regarding non-proliferation are of a sweeping nature. But even with all that has been done, much more remains, as the administration is the first to point out. In his recent speech, the president laid out an agenda listing several areas in which additional action is urgently needed, including addressing the proliferation problems inherent in countries seeking to acquire the complete nuclear fuel cycle and the need for expanded export controls worldwide, among others. Some of these problems have no ready solution and will require increased attention. Each of these many actions and policies should be celebrated in themselves. But their true importance emerges only when they are arrayed together and seen as a whole, for they demonstrate the extraordinary effort by this administration to craft and put in place a far-seeing, comprehensive and action-oriented strategy focused not merely on the limited task of defense, but on preempting our annihilation.

Of course, the administration inherited some very valuable initiatives, such as the Nunn-Lugar program that continues our massive effort to secure the vast weapons of mass destruction arsenal left in the wreckage of the Soviet empire. But its strategy moves well beyond merely embracing and modifying this inheritance to aspiring to nothing less than a dramatic and ambitious reinvention that seeks to address all areas of this fatal menace, and to do so for the first time. If there is fault to be had with this administration in this area, it is that they have been remiss in not shouting their success from the rooftops.

Action long dreamed of is finally being taken, but there is much more to do. We must make up for decades of stillborn plans, of wishful thinking, of irresponsible passivity. We're already late, but we are no longer bystanders wringing our hands and hoping that somehow we will find shelter from gathering threats, no longer dispirited by difficult problems that have no immediate answer, no longer waiting for some international court to issue a reluctant warrant or grudging permission to allow us to take measures to protect ourselves.

This president has begun to lay the foundation for a comprehensive, multi-layered, root-and-branch approach to the mortal danger of the proliferating instruments of our destruction. A global system of overlapping levels of international, multilateral, and unilateral measures is being erected, each using different tools and methods, but all sharing a common purpose: the putting in place of a strategy of preemptive non-proliferation.

We are only at the beginning, but it is an extraordinary beginning. Everyone in this room, everyone in this country, owes this administration thanks for the fact that we are not only meeting this ultimate of threats on the field, but we are advancing on it, battling not only aggressively, but successfully. For the outcome of this battle may be nothing less than a chance to survive.

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REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R-CA): Yes, thank you very much. I just was over at a meeting with our Italian friends in the Italian aerospace industry, as you know, it works with us very closely on many of our aerospace goals.

Mr. Bolton, could you please compare this administration's pursuit of anti-terrorism and non-anti-proliferation in terms of these policies-could you compare that to the Clinton administration? You know, sometimes I just think that people like to compare George Bush to something-someone who is perfect. It's sort of like looking for the perfect spouse. And you're never going to find the perfect spouse, you've got to compare people to reality. Maybe you can just compare what you're doing as compared to all of the great accomplishments in this area of the last administration.

MR. BOLTON: Well, I think one of the-one of the things that has motivated us, particularly since September the 11th, is the obvious fact of, unfortunately, widespread non-compliance with existing treaty obligations, that many states that said that they were complying with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, for example, like Iran, like North Korea, had signed up for these obligations and in fact were violating them. And indeed, in some cases-and I've elaborated in the testimony-were actually benefitting from cooperation provided through the IAEA. We felt that where it's clear that either national law enforcement systems or the international treaty and export control regimes has been inadequate, that we needed to do more, that it was not simply enough to rely on a country signing up to agreements that they weren't prepared to comply with. That's one reason that the president has pressed so hard for the Proliferation Security Initiative. It's not intended to replace the non-proliferation treaties or the export control regimes, but it is intended to address the obvious fact that they're not completely successful.

REP. ROHRABACHER: Let me get a little more specific with you. For example, let's use an example, North Korea. It just seems to me that I was sitting in this room during the last administration-I just seem to remember that their policy was providing basically a subsidy of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money that eventually went to North Korea, and then the North Koreans were in reality thumbing their nose at us and lying to us about it. And now I'm not sure about the dates, but wasn't it in this administration that we determined that the North Koreans were lying, and so comparing the two-the last administration subsidized somebody-North Korea, in their quest to build nuclear weapons, and this administration is calling them on the carpet?

MR. BOLTON: We-we concluded about a year and a half ago that the North Koreans were violating the agreed framework that was put in place in 1994, where they had committed to completely abandon the pursuit of nuclear weapons. And indeed, A.Q. Khan's recent confession I think shows fairly dramatically that even after-after they had signed up to the agreed framework to stop the plutonium route to nuclear weapons, that the North Koreans at some point very soon thereafter began the pursuit of nuclear weapons through uranium technology.

REP. ROHRABACHER: So-so in the last administration, the North Koreans moved forward dramatically, even with American subsidy, to develop their nuclear weapons. What about Libya during the last administration? Wasn't Libya deeply engaged in this during the last administration? And now, have they not done a reversal in this administration?

MR. BOLTON: I think unclassified CIA reports going back to the year 2000 said that Libya began moving very actively in the nuclear and other field with the suspension of the U.N. sanctions on Pan Am 103.

REP. ROHRABACHER: All right. And what about in Pakistan? During the last administration, we now find that during the entire time of the last administration, Pakistan was deeply involved in developing its nuclear weapons, and although they administration did-the last administration, you know, did actually take some steps, but then Pakistan then began-became a proliferator rather than just a developer during the last administration. So, in Libya, in Korea, in Pakistan during the last administration-and, I might add, if you look back I think you'll see the same is true for Iran-in all of these situations, when comparing this administration to the perfect administration, it doesn't look too good, but when you compare it to the last administration, I think we get about an A-plus-plus.

MR. BOLTON: Well, I think, with respect to North Korea, I think Secretary Powell put it absolutely right on target when discussing how you deal with North Korea and looking at the agreed framework he said, "We're not going to buy that horse again."

REP. ROHRABACHER: Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.

REP. ROS-LEHTINEN: Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Schiff.

REP. ACKERMAN: Would-would the gentleman yield?

REP. ROS-LEHTINEN: If-I have been kind enough to let other members run over their time, including Mr. Rohrabacher, and if we could just this moving, Mr. Ackerman, in a minute I will recognize you. Mr. Schiff.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I wasn't really going to pursue this line, but as my colleague from California has raised it, I think we should follow through. First of all, to compare the last administration with the current administration, I recall in the early months of 19 -- of 2001 that the current administration was proposing to radically cut Nunn-Lugar. So, far from initiating a strong non-proliferation regime at the outset of this administration, in the months prior to 9/11, the administration's budget actually made massive cuts to Nunn-Lugar, which I think was a step-a very significant step in the wrong direction. Subsequent to 9/11, those cuts were restored and then some, which I think has been positive. And since that point, often obstruction has come from the Congress, not the administration.

But since my colleague in particular raised the case of North Korea, I'd like to ask by what measure, by what barometer can we say that we are better off vis-a-vis North Korea today than we were three years ago? Because, it seems to me the experience of the last three years has been an increase in the rate of acceleration of North Korea's nuclear program, not a deceleration. And, while there were obvious flaws with the policy of the prior administration, whereas the North Koreans were cheating on the agreed framework, it certainly, I think, can be said that the current success of this administration's policy, if it can be argued it is no worse, it's certainly been no better in achieving its results.

So, I would like to ask at the outset by what measure are we better off vis-a-vis North Korea and its nuclear program than we were three years ago?

MR. BOLTON: Well, first, perhaps I could address a-an error in your statements about the programs in the former Soviet Union dealing with their weapons of mass destruction.

The administration began a review of those programs when it came into office, a comprehensive review of those programs that had never been undertaken before. And I think that that review was quite important. There were some modifications made that strengthened them, and I think that those modifications received broad support in Congress.

Subsequently, working together with Canada and with the other G-8 leaders, but at the initiative of President Bush, the G-8 created the Global Partnership for the Elimination of Weapons of Mass Destruction --

REP. SCHIFF: Mr. Bolton --

MR. BOLTON: -- and Weapons-of-Mass-Destruction-Related Activities.

REP. SCHIFF: Mr. Bolton, if I could interject, my --

MR. BOLTON: Doubled the funding for that.

REP. SCHIFF: My point, Mr. Bolton, was the administration cut its budget for Nunn-Lugar. Is that not correct? Did the administration propose a greater budget than the Clinton administration had in Nunn-Lugar in the first months of 2001?

MR. BOLTON: The result of the overall review was essentially straight-line funding for all programs dealing with weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union of slightly over $1 billion a year, which was the rate of funding that was being appropriated at the end of the last administration and the beginning of this one.

REP. ACKERMAN: Would the gentleman yield?

REP. SCHIFF: Mr. Ackerman, I'll be glad to yield if I have any time left, but I would like to make sure I have a chance to hear the answer to the question vis-...-vis whether we're better off now on North Korea. And the final question I'd like to ask, in case the clock runs on me, is I agree the essential bargain of the NPT, in hindsight, is not a particularly attractive one.

One suggestion that's been made by Dr. El-Baradei is that we or other nations provide the raw nuclear material for reactors, and then we take the spent product back as a way of getting away from the bargain of atoms-for-peace that will enable you to develop the enrichment capability, et cetera, which can lead you very far along the path of developing a bomb. And I'd like your opinion, after you address North Korea, on Dr. El-Baradei's suggestion.

MR. BOLTON: The situation that existed with respect to North Korea when the administration took office was that North Korea was violating the agreed framework, was actively engaged in a production scope procurement effort to acquire the capability to do uranium enrichment, to be used in nuclear weapons, and the United States and others were supplying resources to the North Korean regime that, in effect, were propping that regime up.

By exposing the North Korean deception in violation of its obligations under the agreed framework, I think that we contributed to the isolation of North Korea, contributed to a heightened awareness of the threat that North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons posed, and led directly to the effort that we're engaged in now through the six- party talks.

REP. SCHIFF: Mr. --

MR. BOLTON: Everybody engaged in the six-party talks.

REP. SCHIFF: Mr. Bolton, do you think we're better off now that North Korea has reprocessed the spent fuel?

MR. BOLTON: It's not at all clear, Congressman, when North Korea began reprocessing the plutonium. But the plutonium is only one side of the North Korean nuclear weapons effort. The uranium enrichment side, about which, unfortunately, we know not as much as we'd like, provides a completely separate route that simply continuing to keep the agreed framework in place, as many argued, would have permitted the North Koreans to continue to advance toward nuclear weapons through that route. And I think that would have been an extraordinarily dangerous situation if we were confronted with it once that had become a fact.

The other thing that we've done that's extremely significant is to take active steps to cut off the funding sources for North Korea without which its nuclear weapons program, and indeed much of the support for its elite, could not exist, through the Proliferation Security Initiative, to deny the North Koreans the hard currency that they get from the proliferation of ballistic missiles into the Middle East and elsewhere and their overall weapons program, to work with Japan and others to cut down their illegal activities in that country, and to work with a number of countries, including Australia, to cut off North Korea's illegal drug trade, to take active steps to deny the North Koreans access to financial resources that are critical to continuing their nuclear program.

REP. SCHIFF: And yet, Mr. Bolton, you would not prefer to have a North Korean nuclear program at its current stage of development over the North Korean nuclear program as its stage of development three years ago, would you?

MR. BOLTON: Well, three years have gone by, three years during which, without the policies we've pursued, the North Koreans almost certainly would have been continuing their efforts in uranium enrichment. I think this is a real blind spot that some people have that, looking at the spent fuel rods at Yongbyon is not necessarily the center of the threat posed by North Korea. It was their clandestine production scope procurement efforts in the uranium enrichment field violating the agreed framework and calling into question fundamentally their willingness to agree to any resolution or initiative.

REP. ROS-LEHTINEN: You can wrap up your questions, Mr. Schiff.

REP. SCHIFF: Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll just wrap up this way.

Mr. Bolton, I don't deny that North Korea is a very tough problem. It is. And I'm not sure there's any perfect policy. But I don't think there's any question but we're at a worse stage now with North Korea than we were three years ago. And I think it indefensible to argue that we are better off now with North Korea's nuclear program where it is today than we were three years ago.

Now, it may have been that a different policy would have similarly failed. But this policy has borne very little fruit. And I think, unless we acknowledge that, we're not being candid about what's taking place in North Korea.

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