Panel I of a Hearing of the House International Relations Committee on US-Russia Relations

Federal News Service

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

SUBJECT: U.S.-RUSSIA RELATIONS

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE HENRY HYDE (R-IL)

WITNESS: BETH JONES, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

LOCATION: 2171 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:

REP. HYDE: The committee will come to order. (Gavel.)

Our hearing today concerns the evolution of relations between the United States and Russia in President Putin's second term. Our countries share many interests, and our ability to cooperate will bear directly on our fortunes.

The admirable record of cooperation to date has recently come into question as President Putin has taken actions that unfortunately appear to have undermined democratic institutions, practices and guarantees in his country. Today we'll hear from two panels of very distinguished individuals on this subject. I, for one, am looking forward to what I assume will be omniscient analysis and predictions, but first I would like to directly address the question of democracy in Russia.

The mere fact that we can speak of the possibility of democracy in Russia as a reality in the present and not as some dim prospect in the hazy future is one of the many wonders of the past two decades with which we've grown familiar and which many now take for granted. However uncertain, its existence is a testament to the deep commitment to fundamental values shared by people all over the world.

The United States and the West as a whole owe an immense debt to all the men and women of Russia who have struggled to establish and defend a democracy in their country and thereby create a new era of freedom after a thousand years of autocratic rule. The benefits of that freedom, of course, are most directly felt by Russia's own citizens. But the West has benefited enormously as well. A half- century of effort by the U.S. and its allies to contain and undermine Soviet imperialism enjoyed many successes. But it was only with the advent of democracy in Russia that the Soviet empire was finally destroyed. The emergence of democracy in Russia must be counted as one of the great achievements of the past century. However, for all of its accomplishments, that democracy is not yet firmly established. The civil society on which all democracies ultimately rest remains weak; much of the legacy inherited from Russia's authoritarian past is still to be overcome; the institutions of democracy are largely untested; the habits of freedom have yet to become universal.

Given these and other concerns, the government's stated goal of creating a guided democracy, where the parameters of permitted dissent are significantly narrowed, is very troubling. Why is this our concern? Because the strengthening of Russian democracy and advancing Russia's integration into the West are unquestionably in the long-term strategic interests of the United States. These are necessary if we are to make permanent the gains we have derived from the liberation of Europe, a commitment that stretches unbroken for half a century, from the landings on the Normandy beaches to the final dissolution of the Soviet empire.

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REP. BETTY MCCOLLUM (D-MN): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Madam Ambassador, I want to take the discussion on page two, where you have a couple of lines talking about securing nuclear and other weapons-of-mass-destruction-related materials on the territory of the former Soviet Union and ask you a couple of questions about that.

I, with all my colleagues, and I think all the citizens of the United States, are very concerned about terrorism and access to easily developed dirty bombs. I had the opportunity with a member, Member Schrock, myself and I, and some members of this staff to go to Norway last year. And then, with the Norwegian delegation, we went to the Kola Peninsula. And we were going to look at the shipyards in Murmansk.

Now, the Russian government had my passport, other people's passports, for close to a month, if not over a month. We were in Norway for a week. And then, lo and behold, all of a sudden, literally an hour before we're to tour the facility at the shipyard, the Russian government starts ticking off who out of the Norwegian delegation and who out of the U.S. delegation can go.

Now, this is a concern to me, because we are putting dollars into an effort for decommissioning nuclear weapons, and the Norwegians are working on removing nuclear waste out of ships from an environmental standpoint.

But there's also the terrorists' standpoint, with having these lighthouses out, unprotected, and terrorists could-quite frankly, I'm alarmed how easily, should they choose to do so, go in and harvest nuclear material and create a dirty bomb.

So my question is, what is the Russian government doing about this? I mean, it's great to see on paper here-and I am very concerned about Iran and other issues-but what is the Russian government doing in taking responsibility itself and really engaging and working with the international community in making this world a safer place? Because we need to win the war on terrorism.

MS. JONES: There's no question that we need to win the war on terrorism. It is my very, very firm belief that President Putin and his administration are equally concerned to win the war on terrorism, specifically because they are the targets of terrorism almost as much as anybody else is because of Chechnya.

They are equally concerned about the situation in Iran. They've become awakened to those kinds of dangers. I very much regret, all of us do, that the situation happened with your trip from Norway to try to visit the shipyard. That should not have happened. There's since been a trip, a successful trip, to visit those shipyards and to take a look at the programs that we have there, that we with the Norwegians have there.

We have quite extensive cooperative threat reduction programs that we would like to continue with the Russians. They are very effective. We are very concerned to make sure that we have good control of those programs, good control of the money that goes into those programs, and make sure that the accounting for those programs is as accurate as it possibly can be, so that everything that is supposed to be done with that money is actually accomplished, for all of the reasons, exactly all of the reasons that you outlined.

But I am completely assured that the Russian government is as concerned about the possibility of nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands -

REP. MCCOLLUM: Madam Ambassador, I'm going to follow up with a comment.

MS. JONES: Please.

REP. MCCOLLUM: I would like you to provide Chairman Hyde not just concerns, but I'd like to see what's actually diminishing, both in the lighthouses and what the Russian government is -- (inaudible).

MS. JONES: Absolutely.

REP. MCCOLLUM: And then, Mr. Chair, I serve on the Education Committee as well as this committee, and I'm hearing from our ambassadors all over the world about their-our ambassadors about their concern about what's happening with our international foreign exchange students.

We just heard it from Ambassador Jones. At some point, Mr. Chair, I think it might be helpful if you and the chairman of the Education Committee, either before the election or after the election, visit this issue so that we can address our ambassadors' concerns on this.

Thank you.

REP. HYDE: Thank you. I certainly will take that under advisement. Mr. Tancredo of Colorado.